


Tug o' War

by svana_vrika



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Dreams, Established Relationship, False Memories, Flashbacks, M/M, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-09 00:00:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5517950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/svana_vrika/pseuds/svana_vrika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daniel finally remembers life pre-ascension, but is it too late for Jack to care? Jack could put up with a lot, but he'd never been able to stomach betrayal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tug o' War

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer** This story is an original work of fan-fiction. Stargate-SG1 and its characters, props and settings are the intellectual property of MGM, and The Simpsons and its characters and dialogue are the intellectual property of Matt Groening. I just borrowed the lot for a few thousand words of entertainment. No copyright infringements intended, and I will make no profit from their use.
> 
>  **Word Count** 24,220
> 
>  **Warnings** Brief, mild het for the purpose of the story. Explicit slash. Major ascension and _Fragile Balance_ spoilers. Angst- happy ending
> 
>  **Author’s notes** Thanks: To my fabulous artist and beta, Eilidih17, and to the members of the Fifth Race and Spacemonkey groups on Facebook ™ for listening to me flail and bitch and for providing support and answers on the fly. We truly do have an amazing fandom! Written for the Stargate Summer2015 Big Bang Challenge. **Artwork can be found here:** [Click to see the amazing!!](http://eilidh17.dreamwidth.org/79968.html#cutid1)

_”Jack. Oh God, Jack…”_

_The heat coursing through Jack’s body flared. Daniel was close. Everything from the dilation of his eyes to the tone of his voice to the constant movement of his hands over Jack’s shoulder blades screamed it. And nothing had ever stoked his arousal the way Daniel at the cusp of coming did. “That’s it, Danny. Come on,” he all-but-whispered, his own need translated through the slightest crack as he uttered that last word. He was on the verge himself but couldn’t let go yet. If he did, he’d miss that one, perfect moment when--_

_“Jack!”_

_Jack’s world stopped for that second as he drank in the sight of Daniel at his peak. It didn’t matter that he’d seen it countless times. It still was the most beautiful, most amazing thing, and Jack knew that the physical sensations were only a part of it. It impacted him that way every damned time because he loved Daniel. Deeply. More than he had ever loved anyone else. Because, unlike anyone else, Daniel **knew** him. Every bit of him. Pieces of him that he’d never shared with anyone else. He could be whole. Daniel made him whole. “Daniel!”_

“Jack!” A furrow formed on Jack’s forehead when, instead of Daniel’s tenor, a most definitely feminine voice called for him in turn. A gentle shake followed; blinking his eyes open, he rolled slightly to look over his shoulder. 

“…Sara?” Jack blinked again to clear the sleep that clouded his gaze and then studied hers, trying to place the emotion he saw there. A couple of breaths passed and it clicked- and his eyes briefly closed again. “Daniel?” he muttered in question as he made himself meet the woman’s soft blue. 

“Yeah, Daniel.” Sara looked at him for a moment and then sighed. Rolling over to face him, she then smoothed a hand over his cheek. “Jack, you need to--" 

“I know,” Jack cut her off and then caught her hand as it dropped away, Sara’s lips pressing together in an irked little line at having been interrupted. “I know,” he said more gently as he lightly squeezed the smaller appendage. “And I swear, Sara, I’m trying. But--" 

“I know,” she quietly silenced him in turn and then she pressed a kiss to his lips, the gesture warm and familiar, but so wrong at the same time that he swore his soul hurt. “It’s okay, Jack,” she assured as she rolled away from him again. “It’ll be okay.” Sara took his hand as he draped an arm over her. “Go back to sleep.” 

With a soft grunt of acknowledgement, Jack closed his eyes to do so, but he lay awake instead, breathing regulated so that Sara would believe he’d done as she’d asked. He knew he wouldn’t find sleep again that night. The dream and the emotional sensations from it were still far too vivid. Heart and soul he ached, and he thought he hated himself a bit for it. Sara was a good woman who deserved more, regardless as to how deep he’d loved Daniel. And given the time that had passed, Jack couldn’t blame her for the frustration and hurt he’d finally realized he’d been seeing in place of the compassion that had always been in her eyes before. 

Jack wasn’t sure how long he laid there before finally falling asleep, but the smell of coffee woke him at some point later. He smiled. It -- both the scent and the beverage itself -- would always remind him of Daniel, as he was responsible for both the pleasant connotations and his own, relatively new, addiction to it. Sara had teased him about it but had willingly incorporated brewing a pot into their normal morning routine; Jack’s smile faded with a slight sigh as he thought back to a few hours ago. Sara loved him. Had never stopped, she’d said when, after countless weeks of her having provided comfort without question after Daniel had died, he’d finally found himself with enough mental clarity to ask her why. 

Jack had never stopped loving Sara either, but he’d not told her that. It had been too soon and the type of love he held for her had changed. It had long before he and Daniel had gotten together. He suspected it was the same for her, which was why she’d never questioned, even though it had taken him weeks after to admit his feelings to her. They were older. Too much time and too many hurts had passed for it to ever be what it was. But, he recalled having hoped as he’d laid there after having made love to her that night, maybe it would be something better. Or at least, be enough. Jack’s eyes fell closed as the dream came back, it so vivid that he swore he could still taste Daniel on his mouth. Now, he found himself wondering if it could be either. 

“Hey.” 

Jack opened his eyes again, saw Sara standing in the doorway. She had a cup of coffee in her hand and his gaze went from that to take in the way the light from behind highlighted her nakedness through the thin, cotton gown she wore. “Hey,” he greeted in return, gaze finally lifting to the soft blue, and then he sat up, letting the sheets pool around his waist, pretending he didn’t notice the missing sensation of his dog tags shifting against his chest just as he had every morning since he’d retired. He’d tried to tough-guy his way through for the team and the greater good and all of that, but he’d just not been able to reconcile himself to the way Daniel had been sold out to the Kelownans. Hammond’s duplicity had cut him near as deeply as Daniel’s death had, and each day he’d spent trying to live the lie had made him feel like he’d been perpetuating that betrayal. 

Something shifted in Sara’s eyes then; Jack blinked, saw the wary curiosity that had settled there, and silently cursed himself for the space-out. “You didn’t have to bring that,” he said with a smile that belied the weight in his gut. “I woulda come down.” 

“I know.” She walked over, handed it to him, and then settled beside him on the bed. “I just thought you might like the extra lie-in after the night you had.” 

“Sara--" 

“Jack, don’t.” She gave a small smile. A sad smile. “I knew going into this it was going to be hard. I know how much you loved him. More than you ever did me, I think. Shh.” Sara placed a hand on his thigh. “It’s okay.” A slight smirk and tilt of her head as she thought about that for a moment. “Well, maybe not _okay_ , but I get it, Jack. I do. Daniel got to be part of a life of yours that I never was able to. You could share things with him, pieces of yourself with him, that you were never able to with me, and he was able to understand you on a deeper level than I ever could. It’s only natural that you would have been drawn by that and, since he wasn’t Air Force, you weren’t breaking any regulation by loving him. Any military regulation, anyway,” she added almost wryly as she withdrew her hand and then stood to cross over to her dresser. 

For as grateful as Jack was for Sara’s understanding, the guilt inside of him blossomed in its warmth, and then both withered as her last words struck like a splash of ice water. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked as he reached over to set the coffee mug on the nightstand, and then he got to his feet. “Sara?” he said in a more pressing tone when she simply ignored him. 

“You were married in the same church I was, if I remember right,” she replied dryly as she set the items she’d pulled from the drawer on top of the bureau. She took off her nightgown and then sighed. “Never mind.” Garment hanging from her hand to trail on the floor, she turned to him. “That part of your life is over and you’re with me now, so it doesn’t matter. And I guess that, out of the mess this turned into, that was the point I was trying to make. Daniel’s gone, Jack. And you’re with me.” She dropped her nightgown to the floor as she walked to him, stopped mere inches in front of him. “You love me. You came back to me.” Sara grabbed his hand, brought it to her left breast, palm flat just above it so he could feel her heart. “Feel that, Jack? It’s real. _I’m_ real, and your feelings for me are real. Daniel? He’s just a memory.” She took a step closer, tipped her head up; he felt her nipple start to firm as the shift in position caused his thumb to brush against it. “So enjoy what’s right here for the taking and stop wasting your life chasing after something you shouldn’t be.”

Jack’s brow furrowed, the resentment he’d felt from her implication shifting to a bewildered irritation. This wasn’t right. Nothing about it was, from Sara’s words to the way she was using her body and appeal as weaponry against him; he went to shift his hand from her breast to her sternum with the intent of putting some space between them so that he could ask her what the hell was going on, but then Sara grabbed it instead, encouraging it to her waist as she put her mouth against his. The furrow and his ire both deepened in response to the erratic behavior, the latter to the point where it sent an almost painful jolt through his system. There was the briefest sensation of cold emptiness that followed and then reality came back to him again; shifting the hand from Sara’s waist, he cupped the back of her head and, with hunger and a subconscious realization that he was hard, returned her kiss and backed her to the bed. 

A quick flash of deeper blue eyes and darker hair went through Jack’s mind; hands faltered as he pushed down his sleep pants. But then Sara called for him, reached out for him and it was gone; all he could think about was his need and the willing body now laid out before him. She was right. _This_ was right. Sara’s arms came around him as he lay over her; her name left his lips as, settling between her parted legs, he pushed into her. “Sara,” he murmured again as after a breathless moment and another hungry kiss, he began a slow, loving thrust, and he wondered how he could have ever wanted anything more, or different, than this. 

Ộ

 _There. No…_ His brow furrowed; he reached out and searched again. _There!_ The furrow deepened, his expression one of near pain as he focused on retaining and then honing in on the location of the blip; he only needed it to last fo-- _No!_ He sighed, opened his eyes, looked at his comrade. “It is gone.” 

“And still no response from the other?” 

Thor silently shook his head, eyes sinking closed when he heard the resignation in Bragi’s sigh. The furrow briefly reappeared when Thor caught an underlying emotion beneath it. “What is it?” he asked as he opened his eyes again. 

“Timing.” Curiosity glimmered through Thor’s eyes, further communicated by a tilt of his head, and Bragi continued, “Our guard has been down. We have been distracted. Too distracted to pay as much mind as we should have to allies and enemies alike. Whomever perpetrated this act was aware of our distraction, and that they have the intelligence and means to be able to block our search."

Thor’s eyes briefly widened before closing again. “They are either Asgard or Ancient, or a new enemy of which we have not been aware.” 

There was a moment of silence, and then, “Though, a new enemy would also not be aware of whom we were tracking or why.” 

Thor’s mouth thinned upon hearing the wisdom Bragi imparted. It was a truth that he didn’t wish to face, but he knew that the other was right. He opened his eyes and then shifted his gaze to a console where a particular crystal had been glowing for the past several hours. “And the Tau’ri are calling. I am certain that it is a safe assumption that this is why. “ 

“It is likely, yes.” Bragi came closer, placed a hand on Thor’s arm. “But what would you tell them that could be of any assistance? While it is true they would be aware that we knew and were doing what we could, that _we_ are currently stonewalled would likely only increase the anxiety and impatience they are certain to already be feeling.” Bragi’s eyes glinted slightly. “And our race in its entirety is aware of how the people of the Tau’ri -- and _those_ in particular -- tend to react when those emotions are heightened.” 

Thor blinked and then let his own amusement show. Bragi wasn’t being cruel in poking at the individuals who comprised SG-1. He had merely stated the truth in a way that he’d known would bring at least a brief levity to Thor’s heavy mind. “You are right, of course.” Bragi nodded and then turned; he paused when Thor added after a second, “And thank you, my friend.” 

Bragi turned, nodded again, and then silently exited the deck. After gazing at the doors for a long moment after they slid closed, Thor let his eyes fall shut again. He knew it wasn’t like him to dwell so deeply; in the grander scheme of things, a single, missing human was too miniscule to even bother with. But O’Neill wasn’t an ordinary human, either. While O’Neill hadn’t been advanced enough to aid with their cloning issues, the ancient gene was still too prominent to be ignored. Which was why they’d placed the marker in O’Neill to begin with once SG-1 had recovered him after the incident with the Tok’ra Kanan. And which was likely why O’Neill was missing now. 

Thor’s mouth thinned again with a soft, disgruntled sound as he considered Earth’s tenuous alliance with the Goa’uld rebel faction. It made him uneasy. And it wasn’t because he didn’t believe the Tok’ra were true to their cause. It was the combination of the faction’s fanaticism and the arrogance that was innate to the race that put Thor on edge. It was true that the Tok’ra were patient, but they would stop at nothing to eliminate a Goa’uld, or to keep their location and missions intact, should the circumstance arise. Allies, and even their own members, quickly became expendable. And a piece of him wondered if O’Neill’s second disappearance had anything to do with his first. O’Neill’s moral code and sense of justice made him rash at times, it was a well-known fact. And Thor could not rule out the potential that the Tok’ra had perceived him as too large of a threat, given what knowledge he’d gained from Kanan. 

Thor thought about that for a moment and then, with a minute shake of his head, let it pass. If anything, the Tok’ra were less technologically advanced than the Goa’uld due to the stall in their population growth. And, despite the advances the Goa’uld had gained courtesy of Anubis, the Asgard still held the superior edge. Even if the Tok’ra had taken O’Neill with the intent to eliminate any perceived threat to their movement, they wouldn’t have been able to keep him hidden from the Asgard. 

_Anubis…_ Thor’s eyes fell shut, brow furrowing again. An unanticipated and unwelcome wildcard for certain, and one he’d taken into careful consideration when trying to decide the best manner in which to mark, and then track, O’Neill. He’d known right away that the former would need to be done on a cellular level to ensure that the coveted Ancient gene wasn’t copied into the wrong hands. But that level of DNA manipulation had been beyond even their ability and it had taken a while for his beacon to reach Melia. 

The furrow in Thor’s brow gentled as he thought about the woman, the last remaining member of the High Counsel of the Atlantean race, and a soul that had roamed the universe longer even than his own had. It had been well over a century since they’d encountered each other last, and Melia had admitted to having been intrigued by the fact that Thor had deliberately sought her out. It had only grown when she’d learned what it had been he’d been seeking; the smile in Thor’s eyes deepened as he recalled Melia’s response. 

_”O’Neill.” Melia smiled widely, and then laughed, extending her amusement out an extra second or two when she caught the question in Thor’s eyes. “’tis not the first time I’ve heard mention of the name,” she explained. “It would seem he is causing no small amount of tension amongst my ascended brethren as well, albeit completely vicariously and unwittingly, I am sure.” A softer smile settled in place of the amused one. “You know, of course, of Daniel Jackson’s fate?”_

_Thor nodded. “Of course, though I have yet to encounter him in his newest incarnation.” His head tilted slightly. “What is the connection?”_

_Melia’s smile gentled further. “It seems the boy is having difficulty leaving that particular attachment behind. He pines for his mate, and thus meddles. ‘tis--" Melia paused, her head cocking slightly when she recognized the surprised light in Thor’s eyes. “You did not know?”_

_“That O’Neill and Daniel Jackson had bonded in that fashion?” Thor shook his head. “I did not.” A slight pause. “But then, the Tau’ri remain rather… archaic in their beliefs in that regard, and their military, especially. Beyond that, O’Neill would know that some enemies would see their bond as a possible weakness to be exploited. It would have been natural, under those circumstances, to have kept it between themselves, I believe.” He blinked slowly as he gave the revelation another moment’s thought. “But now that I am aware, I am not surprised. For as opposite as they appear at times, they do compliment and balance.”_

_“It’s been so long for your people that I’m surprised you remember the intricacies of such things,” Melia lightly teased, and Thor smiled, albeit wistfully._

_“Yes, though we do still seek the same things for companionship’s sake.” He then put the troublesome thought of days-gone-by and the impact of their centuries-old choice to the side for the moment. “So, Daniel Jackson’s longing for O’Neill is causing rife amongst the Ascended.”_

_Melia sobered again. “Yes. ‘tis not enough yet to warrant expulsion, mostly just observation, as a fact. But there have been times when O’Neill has been at least suspicious of his presence and this last bit of nonsense with the Tok’ra and Ba’al--" She shook her head. “Physically showing himself _and_ planting the whispers of a rescue plan in the others’ heads; I’m still not sure how Oma managed to shield the boy from their ire but, regardless, he’s under closer scrutiny now. And, as a result, so is she.”_

The two had gotten down to business then and, together, had come up with the method of manipulating, and thus protecting, O’Neill’s DNA. The resulting marker had been perfect - a minor change, and yet still something that could only ever be O’Neill. Granted, the marker _could_ be deciphered, but only by Meila or Thor, as they were the only two in the universe aware of what had transpired. And, like him, Melia would die before revealing the secret. 

_Unless Anubis…_ Thor resolutely shook his head. While Anubis did possess the knowledge of the Ancients, he had no clue as to what had been done, let alone that he and Melia had been involved in it. And, while he realized he couldn’t completely rule out the possibility that O’Neill’s disappearance was Anubis’ doing, he felt the probability was small. Anubis had literally disappeared off of the radar after the incident on Kelowna and Thor truly believed that, as of yet, he was still in too weak-of-a-state to try anything that would draw the attention of the Asgard to him. He sighed and closed his eyes again. He’d sent a beacon back out to Melia when he’d realized their signal was being blocked, but the Ancients were even scarcer than the Asgard were becoming, and he couldn’t even guess as to when she’d be back in range to where his message would reach her.

“ _They are either Asgard or Ancient…_ ” 

Thor shook his head as Bragi’s words wafted back through his mind. He refused to believe Melia would have any part in this duplicity; there was no plausible reason for the Ancients to take O’Neill. As advanced as he was, he really had nothing to offer them. Another moment’s thought and his eyes opened with a start; he brushed a long finger over the small, glowing box that would summon Bragi. “Has there been any update on Loki?” he demanded urgently when Bragi answered the call. 

Ộ

Daniel stared out of the window, simultaneously taking in the way the rain teared down the glass, and the house beyond. The scene was slightly blurred; the glass and moisture seemed to broaden the distance between himself and Jack’s home, and the sight had a slightly surreal quality to it even though Daniel knew it was all tangible: the glass, the water beyond that, and the structure beyond that. His jacket still bore the lingering scent of Jack’s home, his hair was still damp from the rain, his temple rested against the glass that now shielded him from it. It was real. And, with very little effort, he could put himself back into those tangible realities again. The rain. Jack’s house. They were obtainable, unlike the remnant of memories he knew were just as real and yet continued to elude him, wavering like so much of the scenery on a rainy horizon. Unlike the dreams he could only wish could be that real.

Daniel’s lips pressed together slightly and his eyes briefly faded shut. He couldn't remember when, precisely, he’d realized he’d had feelings for Jack. It hadn’t been an instant thing, he was certain of that, though their bond had been. Stark, polar opposites as they had been on the surface, the depths of their losses had connected them in a way. It was how he’d instinctively known why Jack had accepted the mission to Abydos. And why Jack had understood when he’d wanted to stay. They’d both found a sense of peace, and a piece of themselves, by the end of that mission, Daniel thought; him a family and acceptance, and Jack self-redemption. But, though they’d separated, they’d each left an indelible mark on the other’s life. 

It was ironic, really. Daniel knew there were things in his recent history that he hadn’t yet recovered. Yet, he could remember with stark clarity what his reaction had been when he’d seen that Kleenex box. There hadn’t been a doubt in his mind as to who had sent it, and the joy had welled up inside him to bubble out into a laugh that had startled those that had been in the tent with him. His explanation had been met with smiles of varying sorts: Skaara’s overjoyed and Sha’re’s quiet. Almost as if she’d known that, once O’Neill came back through the gate, nothing would be the same again. And she’d been right. 

So much had happened since that day. Loss and gain, tragedy and joy, death and life; it all swirled together to where, at times, it was hard to discern where one ended and the other began. But there was a constant. Jack. Their bond stood at the center of the vortex that their lives had become, strong enough to weather even those things that sought to directly tear them apart. Times when one or the other of them had had to deceive or to leave the other behind. But those times had only strengthened their mettle, not tarnished it. A small smile formed. He’d erred a few moments ago. He knew without a doubt when those feelings had surfaced or, at least, when he’d been unable to lie to himself about them any longer. That moment when Jack had ordered him to fire the nuke on the sub and he’d felt his entire world implode around him. For as empty as he’d been after losing Sha’re, Daniel had died inside at that moment. And his joy had been indescribable when he’d realized Jack (and Teal’c!) had been saved. He just wished-- 

Daniel’s lips thinned and he gave a minute shake of his head. The dreams were bad enough; he and Jack together, making love, building a relationship and a future. He couldn’t succumb to giving them power while he was awake. He had a job to do. Had to work with the man. And he wouldn’t put what they _did_ have together at risk. As it was, after the initial rush of emotion his return had wrought, Jack barely looked at him and only spoke to him when necessary. And, while he hadn’t been back all that long and things had been crazy for most of that time, he couldn’t help but feel like something was wrong; that something had been left between them to fester while he’d been ‘away’. His eyes briefly hardened. It pissed him off that he could remember his feelings, his longing, but not what had put the distance between them. And, as desperate as he was to fully regain his memories, right then he wished with all he had that his unrequited feelings for Jack had remained permanently buried. It was cruel, he thought, and he wondered why he’d ever wanted to be a part of a race that seemingly had no real issue with inflicting such confusion and pain. And then, as if the universe hadn’t tossed enough angst in his direction already, Jack had shown up for his latest report as a kid. 

Daniel gave a soft, derisive snort, disguised as an exhale so as to not raise any question from the others in the vehicle with him. He supposed that, in some regard, he should be grateful. After all, it was hard to feel that same mind-bending mélange of empty soul and desirous ache around the boy. But there were now the concerns over what had happened and if the circumstance was permanent, not to mention the fact that it seemed as if one of their staunchest allies had been responsible. 

The potential of an Asgard betrayal was troublesome on myriad levels, though Daniel would hazard a guess that it was troubling the boy - _Jack_ he corrected himself - most of all. Jack was loyal to a fault, despite the duplicitous actions he’d been ordered to undertake on the military’s behalf. Beyond that, Daniel knew that Jack considered at least Thor to be a friend outside of their official alliance. And, while he knew that not one of them thought Thor had perpetrated this act, he was equally as certain that seeing the Asgard's features in that brief, disconcerting flashback had impacted Jack deeply. 

Daniel changed the tilt of his head against the window just enough to glance over at the boy. A small smile. They were near mimicked in their positions, and the smile faded at the tension he noted in Jack’s jaw and the stoniness of the unseeing gaze reflected through the glass. It was achingly familiar despite the obvious physical differences and, with another quiet sigh, Daniel closed his eyes against the sight. He just wanted to get back to base and put as much distance between himself and the kid as possible. It wasn’t fair. He knew that. He realized that Jack was struggling more than any of them possibly could be. But he couldn’t help it. It was just too much. _Nice to know some things don’t change_ , he’d quipped when they’d stepped into the house and he’d spied the familiar mess. But it really wasn’t. A small, amused smile subconsciously formed as the combination of mental fatigue and the vehicle’s white noise and motion encouraged Daniel toward drifting off. The whole underwear drawer thing had been funny, though. Jack’s bitchiness hadn’t been anything new, but the instant fluster had been kind of cute. It wasn’t as if he’d not seen everything in that drawer before... 

_”Jack!” Daniel gave a sound that was part laughter, part groan, the latter becoming the more prominent as Jack’s mouth found purchase on his neck. He’d been expecting an exuberant greeting -- it had been near a week since they’d had any time to be able to truly indulge in each other’s company -- but he’d thought Jack would have at least let him past the foyer. “Ungh.” Daniel’s knees gave way slightly when Jack lightly bit on the skin he’d been worrying between his lips, as his hand groped at his groin. Daniel indulged in the touches for a moment, pushed his firming dick into the pressure Jack provided. It felt so good and had been so long. But he wanted to play too, and, pinned to the wall as he was-- “Jack!” Daniel’s hand cupped the back of Jack’s head, fingers burrowing into the grayed tresses. “Jack, slow--"_

_“Can’t.”_

_Daniel’s hand froze and he shifted his head to where Jack would have no choice but to move his own._

_“Hammond called while you were on your way out,” Jack explained, resignation briefly replacing the want in his eyes as he met the questioning blue. “We gotta be back on base within the hour. Tsh… shhh…” Jack silenced Daniel’s sputtering protest with a gentle finger to his lips. “I know. It sucks. It sucks, right?” Daniel nodded and Jack smiled. “Well then, instead of wasting any more time debating **that** …” Eyes glinting, hunger returning to the brown, Jack dipped his head again; Daniel’s eyes fell closed with a soft, resigned sigh and then he let it go. It did suck, but Jack was right; what time they **did** have could be put to **such** better use. _

_Tightening the fingers that had remained in Jack’s hair, Daniel forced Jack’s mouth to his own. A grunt escaped onto Jack’s tongue as Jack gave his dick a firm squeeze; the touch brought him to full hardness and Daniel deepened the kiss in response, teeth finding purchase on Jack’s tongue in a gentle gnaw before Jack pulled away with a gasp. The sound wasn’t one of surrender, however; rather one of extreme arousal, and Jack’s hand shifted to his waistband from his dick to roughly work his pants open. Mouth open in a soft, rapid pant, Daniel’s own hand moved to the top of Jack’s head and, behind the rush of blood through his ears, he registered the sound of **something** tearing, but it was insignificant. Eyes near black with want already, he gave an insistent push, dick jerking in anticipation when Jack complied and went to his knees, drawing his clothing down with him. “Please,” he found himself whispering, a shiver running through him when Jack’s hand wrapped around his base and he lowered his mouth. “God, please!” he groaned when those lips finally surrounded his crown. “Ah, Jack!” _

_Jack sucked once, teased the slit and ridge with his tongue, kissed the tip. “God, you’re fucking hot when you’re so needy like this, Daniel.”_

“Daniel. Daniel!” 

Daniel opened his eyes with a start, found himself looking into Sam’s concerned blue. A second passed before he realized where they were and what had happened. “Right. Sorry,” he mumbled as he shifted onto a hip to pull his ID out from his back pocket so the vehicle could proceed past the gate and onto the base. “Dozed off.” 

“Yeah. Kinda got that,” she replied in her dryly teasing way, and Daniel feigned a smile which promptly faded once her attention shifted to the boy, Sam speculating what might be on offer for lunch in -- he suspected -- an attempt to draw the kid from his funk. 

_”It sucks… right?”_

_“Like nothing else,”_ he silently agreed with the dream-voice that echoed in his head. 

Ộ

Jack was barely aware of the weight of the line in his hand as he stared out at the water. Any other... well, _week_ , he would have been entranced and delighted to be there. It truly was a gorgeous site; the woods surrounded him and he loved the tannic appearance of the water as it bubbled over the rocks -- shallow, yet deep enough for the occasional fish to come meandering through. Not that that particular part of it was all that important to him. It had always been about the peace and rote of the act rather than any sort of actual catch. But it was hard to find the enjoyment in anything when faced with the very real likelihood of death, he'd found over the years. Yeah, sure; he could feign his usual light-hearted insouciance when he was with his team, but it still sucked. Every. Single. Time. And this time, it was even worse because of the fucking chaotic mess his life was currently in. 

Jack had run the full emotional gambit the day Reynolds had brought Daniel to them on Vis Uban, it having ranged from disbelief to anger to an inexplicable joy in a matter of seconds. The latter had been equally as short-lived, however, when he realized Daniel’s memories had been stripped. The second had quickly taken prevalence; not at Daniel himself but at the forces who had chosen to punish him for doing the right thing in what was -- to him -- a horrifically demeaning manner, stripping him of literally everything, inside and out. Robbing him of literally everything he was. Of the knowledge of what _they_ were. _Had been_ , Jack reminded himself bitterly. Daniel had regained _some_ of his memories but he seemingly recalled nothing of their personal relationship. And now -- Jack snorted derisively as he almost angrily cast the line back into the water. Even if he did finally remember what they'd shared, how deep in love they'd been, what the fuck could be done about it now? He was fifteen years old for Chrissake. And he was dying. 

"It's not fair," he muttered to himself, not really caring just _how much_ like a fifteen-year-old he sounded right then. Because it wasn't. And not just to him. It was totally unfair to Daniel, too. If he recovered those memories and Jack was already gone, what state would that leave Daniel in? Jack would have rather died a million times over than to have lost Daniel like he had, and that, in its own fucked-up way, had made sense. Faced with being half or less of a man -- of himself -- for the rest of his life, as Jacob had warned, Jack figured he would have taken the ascension route, too. At least then, like Daniel had said, he'd have been able to do more. To continue to make a difference. But Jack knew that Daniel had loved him just as deep and as hard, and to realize that after the bullshit of his nonsensical regression and inevitable death... "It's not fucking fair!" he found himself shouting this time and he was mortified to find moisture rising in his eyes. He didn't know who he hated more right then, Oma Desala, the Asgard, or Fraser for having insisted to them all that it would be for the best if Daniel recalled his memories on his own. "I shoulda told him anyway," he muttered as he dashed a hand across his eyes and then he reeled his line in to cast again. "At least there would have been those couple weeks before this shit happened." As it was, it seemed as if they'd barely had any time together at all by the time they'd worked through all the denial and fear and had finally owned up to each other. 

_**”Aw, twenty dollars? I wanted a peanut!”** _

_**“Twenty dollars can buy many peanuts!” ** _

_**“Explain how!** _

_Jack’s silent snicker slowly bubbled to the surface as he watched the scene. He’d seen the episode countless times but it was still comedic gold to him. “Whoo-hoo!” he joined Homer in saying and then he tipped his head back to polish off his beer, only to stop mid-tilt when he heard a knock. For a moment he considered ignoring it but curiosity got the better of him. However, he didn’t let it make him incautious. A quick stop to grab his piece and tuck it into his waistband and he went and answered the door. “Daniel!” Jack’s eyes briefly flickered over the younger man’s figure before meeting the brilliant blue. Daniel had a style all of his own, comparatively speaking, but it worked; Jack didn’t care what he put on. He looked good. **’Pro’lly ‘cause it’s Daniel,** he wryly teased himself. Daniel’s brow arched then and Jack realized he’d been quiet a second or two too long. “What’s up?”_

_Daniel’s brow evened out. “Nothing. I just--" He glanced away, which piqued Jack’s curiosity, but then Daniel’s gaze returned to his own. “I heard you about bit it again,” he said with the faintest hint of a smirk._

_Jack blinked and then smirked himself. “Cute. Though I don’t know if these bugs had teeth. Almost wish they had though,” he muttered, going along with Daniel’s little joke, even as he rubbed idly at his right triceps. His body still stung pretty much all over from the myriad attacks he’d taken from the lifeforms on M4C-862. He saw Daniel watching him, noticed how the expression in his eyes had changed, and Jack’s head tilted slightly. A softer smile rose. “I’m good though, Daniel. Fraser gave the all clear. And you know I’ve been through worse. Hell, we all have.”_

_“I know.”_

_A moment of silence passed, and then another, it finally extending to where Jack started to feel uncomfortable. “Daniel--"_

_“Jack, can I come in?”_

_“Oh! Yeah, sure.” He stood aside, then closed the door once Daniel was in. “You want--"_

_“Jack, I--" Daniel stopped, gave a brief, small smile, and nodded. “Go ahead.”_

_Jack simply studied him for a moment, eyes narrowed, trying to assess what was going on. Daniel could be fidgety and distracted at times, but this was an entirely different read and it was throwing him. “It’s okay, Daniel. You go on.” A minute tip of his head even as he smiled a bit. “Must be pretty important to have you all the way out here. I know you gotta be dragging ass; you didn’t get back with Eleven ‘til a couple hours ago, eh?”_

_“Yeah.”_

_Jack waited a couple long moments and then exhaled, his patience growing thin. “Daniel!”_

_“Sorry. I just -- I can’t do this anymore, Jack,” he rushed and he pushed a hand through his hair; started pacing the foyer. “I know it turned out okay, and I know you’re fine, and I know you’ve faced worse than a bunch of miniscule energy beings. But I can’t do the near misses anymore because one of these times, whatever’s **not** gonna miss and the thought of that happening and you never knowing scares the hell out of me, Jack.” _

_Jack’s stomach, which had plummeted with Daniel’s first declaration, went into a not-entirely-unpleasant twist with his last. “Know what, Daniel?” he asked, somehow managing an even tone. He’d thought a few different times during their many days together on P4X-347 that he was picking up on **something** from Daniel but, when things had returned to business as usual once they’d been able to return home, he’d chalked it up to the same wishful thinking he’d been harboring for the past couple of years. However now, with Daniel talking as he was, standing there all nervous and unable to even meet his eyes like some boy asking out his first date-- _

_Daniel took hold of him then, startling him out of the thought; Jack’s eyes widened when, bypassing any more words, Daniel kissed him instead. Jack could feel the tension radiating through Daniel’s body from the hands that rested on his shoulders; eyes sliding closed with the briefest upturn of his lips, he softened his mouth, felt Daniel relax in response. “I love you,” Daniel murmured without pulling back and then he kissed him again, a bit longer this time. “I love you, Jack,” he repeated. “And I wasn’t going to let either one of us leave the planet again without letting you know.”  
_

Daniel had kissed him again, deeper and hungrier, barely giving Jack time to tell him he loved him back. Somehow he’d managed, and when he had-- “Fuck,” Jack muttered to himself, and while he wanted to blame the erection the memory had caused on teenage hormones, he really couldn’t. He got hard quite a bit just thinking about Daniel. He'd been addicted the moment they'd shared that first kiss. And they hadn't stopped there. Neither one of them had been inclined to. Too much time had been lost already; too many near misses had been survived. And, while they'd had their share of disagreements and (sometimes volatile!) arguments since, they'd never looked back. Had never regretted. "Daniel," Jack murmured, and if he was going to die anyway, he wished that it'd be right then so that he'd at least be rid of the ache gnawing at his heart and soul. 

A small flock of birds rose in startled flight in the distance, pulling him from his macabre thoughts and onto full alert. It didn't take but a couple of seconds to realize his position had been made. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he then picked up his pole again and started tinkering with the line weights. “Unless you brought beer, that’s close enough,” he called out, pleased when he managed a tone cocky enough to match his declaration. It was short-lived, however; he could tell by the way Daniel and Carter were verbally dancing around that there was more going on than just a standard retrieval mission. “For cryin’ out loud!” he finally cut them off, and then Teal’c finally dropped the bomb and his world imploded again. A clone. He was a fucking clone.

Ộ

_It sucks. It sucks, right?” Daniel nodded and Jack smiled. “Well then, instead of wasting any more time debating **that** …” Eyes glinting, hunger returning to the brown, Jack dipped his head again; Daniel’s eyes fell closed with a soft, resigned sigh and then he let it go. It did suck, but Jack was right; what time they **did** have could be put to **such** better use. _

_Tightening the fingers that had remained in Jack’s hair, Daniel forced Jack’s mouth to his own. A grunt escaped onto Jack’s tongue as Jack gave his dick a firm squeeze; the touch brought him to full hardness and Daniel deepened the kiss in response, teeth finding purchase on Jack’s tongue in a gentle gnaw before Jack pulled away with a gasp. The sound wasn’t one of surrender, however; rather one of extreme arousal, and Jack’s hand shifted to his waistband from his dick to roughly work his pants open. Mouth open in a soft, rapid pant, Daniel’s own hand moved to the top of Jack’s head and, behind the rush of blood through his ears, he registered the sound of **something** tearing, but it was insignificant. Eyes near black with want already, he gave an insistent push, dick jerking in anticipation when Jack complied and went to his knees, drawing his clothing down with him. “Please,” he found himself whispering, a shiver running through him when Jack’s hand wrapped around his base and he lowered his mouth. “God, please!” he groaned when those lips finally surrounded his crown. “Ah, Jack!” _

_Jack sucked once, teased the slit and ridge with his tongue, kissed the tip. “God, you’re fucking hot when you’re so needy like this, Daniel.”_

_Jack swallowed him then, the wet heat of his mouth searing away any potential retort. Daniel’s head fell back against the wall with a light thud and he rolled his hips against Jack’s face. “So good,” he breathed as he watched through lidded eyes, and then, “Get yourself off for me, Jack. Want you to come too; either get yourself off or stop so I can fuck you.” Right then, either would be good for him. What he didn’t get now he’d have later and, either way, he’d get to see Jack at his most gorgeous and vulnerable. Not that it was any sort of power trip for him. It was because that moment was his and his alone._

_Jack hesitated, mouth half up his dick, struggle briefly showing in the brown-black his eyes had become. A blink, a flash of resignation and then Jack finished the slide up to his tip, his hand quickly working his own waistband open as he tongued around Daniel’s crown. Daniel gave a slight smile downward, eased his fingers from Jack’s hair to pet through it. **I understand,** his expression and touch conveyed. **I’d rather the other too. But soon**. A soft huff of air around him told that Jack had freed himself; Daniel’s eyes drifted lower and he licked his lips as he watched Jack start to work his dick. He wished it was his hand, or better yet, in his mouth or up his ass, but this was good, too. Jack masturbating was a thing of beauty in its own right and when Jack sucked him into his throat nice and tight- “Ah **fuck!** ” Daniel’s fingers tightened in Jack’s hair again and he surrendered himself to it, vaguely aware of the smug gleam that shone in Jack’s eyes as, gaze locked on the apex of Jack’s thighs, Daniel wantonly fucked his mouth. _

_It didn’t take long for either of them; it had been too long and the tawdriness and roughness borne of too little time and not enough of each other flamed the arousal within them both. The way Jack’s breath caught around him deep in his throat when he found his release pulled Daniel over with a wordless shout; it felt as if he came forever and then he slid down the door and into Jack’s waiting arms. They allowed themselves the luxury of just being for a minute or two, Daniel’s face buried in the crook of Jack’s neck and Jack’s cheek resting on his head. But eventually, he came down enough and, swallowing back the bit of resentment that rose, Daniel opened his eyes and went to shift away. “Ah, damn!”_

_“Hm?” Jack picked up his head and gave Daniel a questioning look, only to snicker when, almost petulantly, Daniel gestured toward his torn briefs. “What? You’ve never cared before.” He grinned suddenly. “As a matter of fact, I seem to recall you telling me at least once you thought it was hot.”_

_“Not when we have a briefing. Not funny, Jack!” he interrupted himself when Jack snickered like a twelve-year-old, though his lips did twitch in response. “ **Anyway** , not when we have to be back on base in about half an hour and I don’t have an extra pair. And it’s not like I can go commando in j... what?” _

_“Just come on.”_

_Daniel’s eyes narrowed slightly but he took the proffered hand and let Jack lead him back to his bedroom. “Here,” he said, opening a drawer and then nodding toward it. “I know they’re boxers and you usually wear briefs but anything’s better’n dealing with the denim and seams.”_

_Daniel thanked him with a smile and then snagged a pair, his head tilting slightly in curiosity when, as he slipped them on, Jack started moving things as if he was looking for something. “Jack?”_

_“Hm?” Jack looked over his shoulder, saw the question in Daniel’s eyes. “Just clearing space.” He smiled, the slight hint of shyness to it making it heartachingly endearing. “I’ll make some room in my closet too. Bring some of your things next time you come. You know; just in case. If you want to.”_

Daniel’s eyes blinked open as Jack’s voice faded. He sighed, but then his brow furrowed. It was odd. None of the other dreams he’d had since his return had been repeated, and he briefly wondered if it was because this one had been interrupted when it had come to him before. And the ache this dream had left him with was different this time, too; still bittersweet, but the feeling in his gut was more urgent than poignant and he wondered about that as well. He blinked again when he heard a sharp knock on the door. “Yeah,” he called out as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. 

“Daniel Jackson.” 

“Yeah, Teal’c.” He snagged his glasses, got up, and then faltered as Teal’c continued.

“It is time to go to O’Neill’s.” 

_”Hey! Do you mind?”_ Daniel suddenly recalled it clearly, Jack’s indignation and how he had put his hands up at the kid’s blurt and had walked away. At the time, he’d thought it had either been a teenaged boy’s embarrassment, or Jack’s reaction to a violation of personal space, but now-- 

_”Just clearing space… I’ll make some room in my closet, too. Bring some of your things…”_

“Daniel Jackson!” 

“Yeah, Teal’c. Coming!” Daniel ran a hand through his hair, put his glasses on and grabbed his coat. Something told him now it hadn’t been either of his initial suspicions, and his stomach flipped at the implication. That it had all been real. His eyes narrowed slightly as he joined Teal’c in the hall. Either way, he’d make sure he got his chance to find out before too much more time had passed. 

Jack and Sam met the two of them at the checkpoint and, together, they headed up to the surface. The ride out to Jack’s was fairly silent; Daniel figured the others were lost in their own thoughts as well. Jack’s house wasn’t close by any means but the drive seemed indeterminately long. And knowing that it was only because he was waiting for the opportunity to confirm his dream didn’t help any. His eyes slid to the boy, Daniel wondering what he was thinking. If he knew Jack as well as he felt, Daniel figured it was about the strategy and the mission at hand. Jack’s emotions would flare on occasion but, for the most part, he excelled in keeping things compartmentalized; keeping proper focus until whatever had been done. 

They parked a slight distance away from the house. Somehow, Daniel managed not to appear any more eager than anyone else to get inside and get things set up. As a group, they made their way back to Jack’s bedroom and, as the three of them reviewed the strategy one last time, Daniel meandered around, knowing not one of them would find it odd; he frequently got fidgety with his hands and pacing anyway. Keeping a close eye and ear, he eventually made his way over to the bureau. A last glance cast in their direction and he eased the drawer open just a crack. 

_”Just clearing space… bring some of your things…”_

Daniel’s stomach flipped and his heart soared in a combination strong enough to leave him dizzy. The dreams that had tormented him from near the time of his descension hadn't been those of longing after all, but those of remembrance.

“Daniel Jackson.” Daniel blinked, looked toward the sound of Teal’c’s voice, realized they were at the door again. “Right. Coming.” He headed over; Jack passed and Daniel couldn’t even look at him. He was too afraid he’d give it all away and what good would that do now? The kid had to have known all this time, and it had to have added to the hell the past seven days had been for him. Better to leave him thinking Daniel hadn’t remembered than to further add to the torment by letting him know that he had when there was nothing to be done about it. Especially now, when the Asgard could be there at any time. 

Mind and heart still trying to process the truth that had just been revealed, Daniel almost dazedly followed Teal’c out and to the back yard. They were to sequester themselves behind the shed and, about a third of the way there, Daniel instinctively took a step to the right, and then suddenly smiled. He’d about twisted his ankle on the divot that lay hidden there one night when, in an extremely playful mood -- which wasn’t rare for Jack at all -- he’d chased him around the back yard with the hose. Daniel’s smile softened. He could also remember how concerned Jack had been when he’d fallen; how tender their lovemaking had been right there in the grass. It was so surreal, the duality of having only learned a few minutes ago truths that he'd known for ages. Like the fact that there was a stack of old playboy magazines in the bottom drawer of the even older Snap-on tool cart in the far corner of the shed, against which he was leaning. That Charlie had been conceived about a month before Jack and Sara's wedding. That Jack adored peanut butter and catsup sandwiches, and had a near-phobia toward anything with more than eight legs. That he could go forever while fucking, regardless as to who was taking whom, but would come within minutes if Daniel fingered him whilst sucking him off.

"Carter, you still got your ears on?" 

Daniel shifted a bit against the shed; closed his eyes, drew a breath and then slowly released it. Anything could happen at any time; it wouldn't do for him to go into it distracted and half-hard. Jack called for him and Teal’c next and, as Teal’c responded, Daniel made himself put the more scintillating thoughts to the back of his mind and focus. It wasn’t as if he could do anything about them anyway. Not until _his_ Jack was back. _His Jack_. A soft, comforting warmth rose with the thought, it manifesting through a gentle upturn of his lips. He'd never get tired of thinking, of _knowing_ , that. Not after having lived with that empty ache for so long. Now, he just needed Jack back so he could tell him. 

_Hurry._

Daniel _grinned_ when the brilliant flash of light interrupted his impatience and he took off across the yard with Teal’c, remembering to make that slight jog to the right a few strides in. 

Ộ

“Colonel O’Neill?” Jack rolled his head against the wafer thin pillow upon which it rested and arched a brow in lieu of giving a nod. The technician smiled. “Images are sound, sir. You can get up and take a seat. The radiologist is reviewing the scans now and will be in shortly.” 

“Thanks.” The girl exited and Jack sat up, scowling a bit at the ache that had settled into his lower back from laying on the hard, narrow slide. He swung his legs over the edge and then stood, briefly rubbing at his coccyx before heading over to the equally as uncomfortable seat. “What a pain in the ass,” he muttered as he sat, and then he gave a quick glance over the magazine offerings. “Christ,” he muttered disdainfully as he snagged a two-year-old copy of _Field and Stream_ , and then, more petulantly added, “This sucks.” It didn’t matter that he was alone in the room. He’d always been a whiny sort of patient, save for the times when he’d been near death or too out of it to _realize_ he’d been a patient. But, while he would continue to complain, he would also admit that he’d been left with little choice in the matter. The headaches, which had started out as a mere nuisance when they’d struck about six weeks ago, had become near-crippling when they’d hit. Which blew because, other than that, life was better than it had been in an age.

“Colonel O’Neill?” Jack looked up in surprise and the woman good-naturedly laughed at him. “I see you were expecting a bit longer of a wait,” she observed, dryly amused, and then, “Good news, sir. CT and MRI both came back completely normal. Well, normal for you,” she amended with a slight chuckle and then she sobered, though her smile remained. “I’m happy to say that there aren’t any new anomalies. At least, not from what I can see in comparison to the scans we had forwarded from Cheyenne.” Her head tilted slightly as she took in his expression “It’s good news, sir,” she affirmed, though a hint of confusion did creep into her tone.

“Yeah.” Jack gave a mental shake of his head to try and clear the perplexity her announcement had caused. “Yeah, Doc. I know.” He was silent for another moment, and then, “So… what? It’s all in my head?” He smirked when the radiologist couldn’t quite refrain from rolling her eyes, though at least she did laugh.

“Maybe?” She gave an easy smile and sat down, shapely legs crossing at the knee. “You’ve not exactly led the most normal, stress-free life, Colonel. And you’ve only been out of it for what? Six months now?”

“Eight.”

“Right. Well, regardless, when you consider the length of time comparatively, I’d be very surprised if your mental and emotional states have even caught on to the fact that you’re truly out of that life, let alone fully adjusted to it.”

Jack arched an incredulous brow. “So you’re saying the knifing pains in my head are because I don’t have _enough_ stress and action now? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”

The doctor shrugged, unfazed by his doubt. “Stress and action pretty much defined your life for almost thirty years, sir. And for as much medical advancement as we’ve made, there is still a lot about the human mind that we don’t understand. It’s entirely possible that the headaches are some sort of purging or coping mechanism.” A slight smile. “But that’s pure speculation on my part. I’m no psychiatrist. Though--"

“Don’t say it.”

“Fine. But it might not hurt. Especially if you’ve been having any other symptoms. Flashback experiences… dreams… No?” she asked when neither garnered her any reaction. “Well then, sir, all I can suggest is to try and manage the pain as best you can and to come back and see us if it worsens.” She stood. “I’ll phone these results to your primary provider and have him call something in to the pharmacy you have on file.”

Jack rose when she did and he nodded. “Thanks.” Though he knew he wouldn’t bother filling it. The pain and disorientation were bad enough; the last thing he needed was to further cloud his judgment by tossing a bunch of drugs into the mix. He gave a soft, affectionate snort then as he walked out the door. Then again, he was certain Sara would insist; she sure hadn’t let up on him about making a doctor’s appointment. A slight, satisfied smile rose. At least he’d been able to answer honestly about the dreams. For the most part. He’d not had one in several weeks, anyway, and the lingering emotions from them and that part of his life had all but faded. He had Sara, his life with her. It was good. He was happy. And he was glad he was done wasting time and energy on people and a place that only represented pain and betrayal to him. He could- _had_ \- put up with a lot. But disloyalty had never been anything he could tolerate.

Jack’s brow briefly furrowed as he continued his trek to the car. It still bothered him, sure. Still cut him deep. Especially when he thought about Daniel. He’d about been ill the day Sara had told him what had really happened; how Daniel hadn’t died, but had left him. How the base psychiatrist had called her in just before his retirement to tell _her_ the truth and that Jack’s mind was dealing with the post-traumatic stress of it all by telling Jack that Daniel had died. _“I wasn’t supposed to say anything,”_ she’d said, her voice soft, her desperation evident. _“They said it’d be better if you came to the truth on your own. But Jack, the lie your mind is telling you is tearing us apart and I had to. I had to because I don’t want to lose you again.”_ “Why, Daniel?” he found himself asking, voice low, chest tight with the ache he now felt. “Why? I loved you so m- Ungh!”

A knifing pain shot through Jack’s head, it blinding him and sending him to his knees. Darkness engulfed him and he was suddenly so cold that he thought he might die from it. “The fuck?” he mumbled feebly as he felt himself start to fade. The squeal of tires abruptly penetrated the pounding rush of blood behind his ears and he managed to throw himself to his side, only hoping that he’d chosen the right direction. In the back of his mind he heard a door slam and then he felt hands on his arm a few seconds later. “Dude! Dude, you alright?” 

The gruff, concerned voice pierced his head as harshly as the initial pain had and Jack winced- though at least when he opened his eyes, he could see again. “…Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.” He looked around, eyes briefly widening before returning to their pained squint when he saw just how close the man had come to hitting him. “Thanks to you, looks like.” 

“Nah. Thank the army for that.” Jack peered up at him and the man beamed. “Transportation Corps; 8th battalion,” he announced with no small amount of pride. “Just here visiting a couple of friends I made on my last deploy.” He grew serious. “Dude, you sure you’re okay? I ain’t seen a man drop and cower like that since my desert days.” 

“It’s Jack.” Jack started to move; the other man dropped his hand and stepped away and Jack pushed himself up into a crouch and then slowly stood. The world swayed for a moment but then steadied; his head still hurt like hell but at least everything was stable again. “And yeah, I’m--"

“Jack!” Jack instinctively turned his head to the right; the brief moment of wishing he hadn’t dissipated in the surprise he felt at seeing Sara hurrying toward him. 

“Looks like you’re in for it, Jack,” the man who’d helped him said with a slight snicker in his voice. Jack gave a humorless smirk after Sara’s face came into clearer view. Yep. She was pissed. Rightfully so, he admitted, seeing as he hadn’t even recalled she’d been with him. And she’d only be more so if she knew he’d almost blacked out again. 

“Hey,” he said slowly, quietly. “Do me a favor and get moving before she gets here?” A disarming smile to the man. “I’m good now, but you know how they get; she’ll start asking questions, get more worried with the answers…” 

“Say no more, Jack. I got your back.” He slapped it then left, Sara taking his place a few seconds later. 

“What the hell happened?” she demanded. “I went to the bathroom and you were gone!” 

“They finished up and I wanted some air,” he replied, sticking his hands in his pockets as he turned slightly to look at her. It wasn’t a lie and he sure the hell wasn’t going to tell her he’d forgotten about her. He’d be right back in there again. 

“You couldn’t have waited by the door?” 

“I was going to get the car, and then that guy stopped me. He’s looking for a buddy of his.” He watched the indignation fade from her eyes and, when she gave a reluctant nod, he smiled; slipped his arm around her. “C’mon. Let’s go home. The bite in the air’s got me feeling kinda… nappy.” 

“Nappy?” Sara laughed, leaned into him a bit. Jack tightened his hold, rested his cheek on her hair. 

“It’s a word!” He released her so that he could unlock the car and then get her door. “And you should join me.” He waggled his brows suggestively, made her laugh again- and then a brilliant light came and seared everything away. _Sara!_

“Colonel! You alright?” 

Jack’s brow furrowed as the feminine voice pierced the fog of sleep in his mind. Colonel? Sara had never called him that. Not even in jest.

“Jack. Jack!” 

The furrow deepened; a scowl started to form as his gut twisted. _Stop it!_ he angrily chided himself and he tried to force himself awake. It had been _weeks_ since he’d thought of Daniel after laying with Sara.

“O’Neill.” 

Jack’s eyes opened with a start at the sound of Teal’c’s voice. That one made _no_ damned sense and, after a second, he lifted his head slightly so that he could peer at the edge of his bed. His gaze briefly widened at the sight that met him and then the confusion _really_ set in. “What are you all doing in my bedroom?” He slowly sat up, briefly turned his head again to look for Sara. “I assume this is important?” he drawled as, after running his hands over his face, he looked back at his former teammates and stood. Sara must have gotten up before and was likely puttering about for their company, though he had no clue why she’d sent _them_ into their room. And especially Daniel. 

“Just a little, Sir.” Jack’s brow arched slightly at Carter’s intonation. It had been a while, but not so long that he couldn’t tell that he wasn’t going to like whatever it was she was going to say. And he really didn’t want to hear it. It was too surreal that they were even there in the first place. 

“I was just having the weirdest dream,” he murmured, hoping that, by talking himself through the last few minutes, he could make some sort of sense out of what was going on. And then that searing light came again. He barely had time to register that he was aboard an Asgard ship before a young, and oddly familiar, voice drew their attention. The kid looked slightly familiar too and, when he found out why and what had happened, his world careened and then came crashing down around him. “That’s a record,” he found himself saying numbly when Carter revealed how long he’d been out, and then his years of training kicked in and he continued on with his usual insouciance. But inside, he felt like he was dying. Seven days. Seven days that had equated to _months_ of a near-perfect life for him. Life as it _should_ have been. But none of it had been real. And as if that wasn’t enough, there was the kid -- a flesh and blood taunt of what Charlie may have looked like had that dream life worked out the way he’d wanted it to. 

Daniel watched Jack, stomach churning with a mixture of eagerness and anxiety, heart aching to where he thought it might implode from the force of all he wanted to say and do. He was struggling; knew some of it was showing in his expression and voice but, thus far, nobody had paid him any attention. Which was fine. Let them think it was due to the strain of the situation, or indignation over Loki’s callous remarks about his experimentations and the clones. They didn’t need to know the true reason for it. How he was barely managing not to go to Jack and take him in his arms, tell him it would be okay. Because, despite the way Jack was so expertly playing that he was copacetic -- if more than a little pissed off -- about what was going on, Daniel could tell that he wasn’t. Jack was shaken to his very core. And Daniel couldn’t blame him.

It had been all Daniel could do not to push Sam out of the way when they’d met up at Jack’s bedroom door. And he wouldn’t deny it; he’d found some pleasure in the fact that Jack hadn’t responded to her call. And not because he was jealous or because he didn’t like Sam. He loved Sam like a sister; would do anything for her. And, while Jack had admitted to having had some attraction to her, he’d also told Daniel that he’d eventually realized that it had been more residual feelings for Sara than anything true to Sam. No, the urge and smug satisfaction had been borne purely of the fact that Jack was his and of the overwhelming joy he felt for having finally remembered it. But Jack hadn’t responded to him either and, through his disappointment, Daniel had reminded himself that Jack didn’t know he knew yet. And that, for as eager as he was to tell him, Jack had been through a hellish -- and extremely confusing -- experience. He wouldn’t do that to Jack, bring it up right then. Not that he really could anyway with the others around.

Loki’s continued self-righteous posturing and lack of concern for the boy finally pushed Jack into the red. Daniel’s eyes remained on him as he barked for Carter and then stalked over to the console. When Thor finally showed up, Jack greeted him with the full force of his indignation; Thor took it in stride, apologized and then translated it into an anger that radiated through everything from Thor’s gait to his tone of voice as he addressed his former councilman. Daniel had never seen such a show of emotion from an Asgard. 

Thor then revealed that the Asgard had altered Jack’s DNA to prevent exactly what Loki had tried to do. That explained both the anomaly Janet had noted and why Jack’s clone hadn’t matured properly, but Daniel could only imagine how that little bomb had added to the maelstrom of confusion and emotion he knew Jack was experiencing. Daniel’s eyes briefly closed as the ache he felt for Jack grew even stronger. Thor apologized again for what Loki had done, his tone conveying just how deeply troubled he was by the situation. “Yeah, that’s what I’d call it,” Jack’s clone blurted rudely when Thor spoke of the inconvenience, and Daniel felt for him, too. It was frightening to be faced with one’s own demise, no matter how many times it happened, and he was as relieved as everyone else when, after getting Jack’s consent, Thor said that he’d do what he could to save the kid. Daniel smiled slightly, felt some of the tension ease. At least they’d gotten one win out of the mess. _Two_ , he corrected himself, and he shifted a bit, doing his best to keep his impatience in check. Now that everything was solved, all he wanted to do was to get back to Earth, get Jack to himself, and get on with life again.

Thor told them that repairing the boy’s DNA wouldn’t be an immediate thing; that it would depend on how quickly he could bring back the one who had assisted him with placing the protective marker in Jack’s in the first place. The kid had a mini-meltdown at that and, again, Daniel couldn’t blame him. He’d been set against the idea of stasis all along and, according to Thor, it was the only alternative. In the end, it was, surprisingly, Jack who convinced him. Daniel watched as, hands firmly landing on the boy’s shoulders, Jack stopped his rant with a single, sharp, “Hey! It’s not the Tok’ra,” he continued, his voice gentling some even as he shifted a hand to the clone’s chin and forced his gaze up. It was tender and intense all at once, and so Jack that Daniel ached again. He wondered if Jack was thinking about Charlie; knew Jack’s boy would be close to the clone’s age had he lived, and he wondered if Jack might find some peace if he managed to save _this_ child of his. “It’s Thor,” Jack continued. “And I _know_ that, after this crap, he’s not gonna turn you over to anyone else. He’s gonna see to this himself. Aren’t you?” It was stated more than asked and, when Thor nodded under that demanding look, Jack turned his gaze back to the kid. “See? I get that you don’t wanna do this. I do. But you’re me, and I also know that you trust him. So let him do his thing and, by the time you’re good, we’ll have things all arranged for you here. Er, there.” Jack’s hands dropped away. “Earth.” He gestured vaguely toward the window. “Colorado.” 

“Yeah, I get it.” The boy snapped and then, after glaring for another moment, he deflated and then looked at Thor. “Alright. Let’s do this, eh?” A smirk. “I ain’t getting any younger.”

Daniel couldn’t help it; the pun was _horrible_ , but he was exhausted and stressed to the max and the snicker was out before he could stop it. “Sorry,” he mumbled, and then snickered again when he saw Sam’s and Teal’c’s almost inane grins. Nothing from Jack though, and that sobered him. Any other time, Jack would have been laughing too or, at the very least, calling the kid out and teasing him over just how bad it had been. Daniel tried to catch his eye, but Jack wouldn’t allow it. Daniel’s features softened with compassion as that ache renewed and he turned to Thor. “So--"

“Yes.” Thor silently padded over to the console and, instinctively, the group of them came a bit closer together, save for the boy, who gave them a rather forlorn look and then walked over to join Thor. “I will contact you personally as soon as we learn anything,” Thor promised and then, with a flash of light, they were back in Jack’s bedroom again. There was a second or two of silence as they all blinked and waited for the odd tingling of the beaming process to fade and then, “Sir?”

“I know.” Jack turned away from them. “Fraser and Hammond are just _itching_ to spend some time with me, I’m sure.” There was a flatness beneath the attempt at sarcasm, and Daniel’s brow furrowed slightly. It was over with. Jack was back where he belonged, the kid was going to be fine; tiredness, he would have expected. Reluctance to be dragged off for hours of examination and questioning, or even a lingering anger over what had occurred. But there had been bitterness and defeat in that tone and, from the way Sam and Teal’c were looking at Jack, Daniel knew he wasn’t the only one to have picked up on it.

“Jack--"

“Don’t!” Daniel recoiled slightly at the vitriol in Jack’s voice. He blinked, his lips parted, but Jack cut him off before he could try again. “Just... don’t,” he said, his tone more even this time, but still heavy. Tense. “All of you just get out and let me get dressed; I’ll meet you at the car.”

The ride back to base was silent and uncomfortable. Nobody dared say anything; Jack’s walls were up and he was broadcasting a _fuck off or die_ vibe as clearly as if he’d been shouting it. This was more than residual from the kidnapping and cloning. Daniel had no doubt about that, and he wanted to ask Jack what was going on, to make Jack tell him, but he couldn’t. Even if they’d been alone. Because right then, the distance between them felt more unfathomable than what it had when they hadn’t known where Jack had been. 

Once they’d reached base and had cleared the check points, Jack stalked off without a word. Daniel watched after him, and then stared at the empty space left in his wake. He didn’t know if he’d been able to see energy when he’d been ascended, but he would imagine the residual to be a combination of black and dull red; a bed of super-heated coals dying off, but still deadly to anyone who dared to poke around in them. 

“O’Neill seems displeased beyond what one would expect from the outcome of this situation.” 

“Wouldn’t you be?” Daniel shifted his gaze to Sam, who was looking at Teal’c. “I mean, the kidnapping, the cloning, seven days of his life basically gone, not to mention how close Duplicate O’Neill came to dying…” She trailed off, her eyes glancing down the empty hall as Daniel’s had.

“No.” Daniel’s lips pressed together and he slowly shook his head as Sam’s gaze, and Teal’c’s, landed on him. “No, Teal’c’s right. Not that you weren’t, Sam,” he added. “He had a right to be beyond pissed. But he blew that stack on Thor’s ship; everything got sorted…” He shook his head again. “No,” he said again slowly. “There’s more to this than that. “ Daniel’s eyes narrowed slightly as he looked down the hall again. And he was going to find out what it was. 

Ộ

Jack stuffed his hands into his jeans pockets as he jogged down the metal steps. He responded to the occasional shout out with forced amicability as he made his way through the command center and then navigated the halls to the elevator. He appreciated the concern from those that had known what had been going on, and he got that they were glad to have him back, but he was grateful when the car opened empty and when nobody joined him before the doors shut again. Sighing, eyes sliding closed, Jack leaned back against the wall. Fraser had given him the all clear physically and he’d managed a pretty clean report of the incident from his perspective to Hammond. But both had been insistent that he take some time to _re-acclimate to his true reality_ as Fraser had put it in that kind, but no-nonsense, way of hers. And, while Jack had put on a show of bluster just to try and prove he was ‘normal and fine’, he was actually glad for it. Because mentally and emotionally he was a mess. Here, Sara had moved on, he’d realized, and he’d been with Daniel. They’d both been happy, unbelievably so, and happy for each other. But the memories of the life Loki had put him in seemed so tangible and real that he could almost believe that the other memories were the false ones. That he’d call for a cab; Sara would be home waiting for him… The elevator stopped; Jack quickly scrubbed a hand over his face and dropped it before the door opened. “Fuck.” He stepped out of the car. 

“Hey.” Daniel straightened away from the wall, smiled a bit. 

Jack’s steps faltered when he saw Daniel, heard his voice. _Fuck!!_

“I knew you’d be needing a ride, so--" 

“No, I’m good.” Jack cut him off. “Hammond’s authorized a cab.” He kept walking. He heard Daniel take a few quick steps to catch up to him. His jaw tensed. 

“Jack, please. We need to talk.” 

“Not now, Daniel.” His jaw tensed further; he already knew how this would go, and his eyes narrowed when he felt the anticipated hand land on his shoulder.” 

“Jack, it’s important!”

“I said not now!” He gave a sharp shrug and, when Daniel’s hand didn’t dislodge, Jack twisted out from beneath it. “So quit pushing me, Daniel, and leave me the hell--" 

“Jack, I remember!” It wasn’t the crux of what Daniel had wanted to say. Not at that moment, anyway. He was truly more concerned about what was going on; what had happened on Loki’s ship to get Jack to this state. But he figured it would at least get Jack’s attention. Jack’s step faltered again, Daniel held his breath, and then blinked when he simply kept on walking. “Jack!” 

“Damn it!” Jack spun around, his eyes snapping angrily. He couldn’t do this now; the tenuous hold he’d managed on his emotions and sanity had unraveled to a thread with those three words. “Fine. You remember. Good for you!” he found himself spitting, his rage over the fuckery of the situation -- of the past fourteen months or so -- taking hold and further clouding his mind. “What now? You want a prize for it or something?” 

The bitter sarcasm momentarily stole Daniel’s voice and he could only stare- until Jack snorted and started to turn away again. “Jack, what the hell’s going on?” he finally managed to say. 

Jack spun around again. “I’ll tell you what’s going on. You left. You left me for someone else and now, just because you’re back and I’m back and you _remember_ you think everything’s going to be fine. Well guess what? It isn’t.” 

“I lef-- I _what?_ ” Daniel sputtered incredulously. “Jack, that’s not--" 

“It is! You _did_ leave me, Daniel! Sara tol--" He cut himself off, his eyes closed tightly, and he shook his head. No. Sara hadn’t. The Sara in this world had known about Daniel. Had been happy for them. Had mourned for Jack when Daniel had gone. She’d not said a word about him leaving at all. That had all been a dream. “You did,” he ended up repeating dumbly. “You left me.” 

Daniel’s brow furrowed when Jack brought up Sara out of the blue and then abruptly silenced himself. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but the deep hurt in Jack’s voice was tearing at him and Daniel knew they needed to take this elsewhere for both of their sakes. He glanced around; his eyes landed on a closet door and he grabbed Jack’s arm. “Come--"

“No!” Jack twisted from his grasp again. 

“Jack, listen; it’s clear we have some things to talk out, but I don’t think you wanna have that conversation here!” 

“No, Daniel! I don’t want to have this conversation _at all_! I want to go home! Like I said, fine. You remember. But I remember too! I remember how damned bad it hurt when you left. How empty I felt. How lost. And it was only because of Sara that I managed. She took me back, took care of me, stuck with me…” He trailed off, shook his head again, eyes closing tightly once more. “ _Damn_ it!” He couldn’t tell what was real and what was false anymore. He just knew he had to get out. Get away. 

Daniel looked at him, at first hurt and confused, and then sorrowful. Sara again, and as Jack went on about her, he figured he could make a pretty good guess as to what Loki had occupied Jack’s mind with during those seven days. How long had it been in Jack’s dream world? Him and Sara living the life that Jack’s career and Charlie’s death had robbed them of? It had been a heinous thing to do, probing Jack’s memory like that and then giving him what he’d longed for when he’d been young. But what was even crueler in Daniel’s mind was that Loki had done it knowing that he would be returning Jack to a reality that was full of stark reminders of how that had failed. His eyes stung slightly and he blinked hard as he nodded and took a step back. “I’m sorry, Jack,” he murmured. “I don’t know what you went through while Loki had you; can’t even imagine what you’re dealing with from everything else on top of that. You’re right. I shouldn’t have pushed. I just--" 

Jack’s jaw tightened against the desperation he heard creep into Daniel’s voice toward the end, and he cut him off before he could say more. “I know,” he said dully, still unable to look at him. “But I can’t, Daniel. Not yet.” He turned away from the younger man, took a step. Stopped. “Hammond’s given me through the weekend to get my head around what happened and back in the game. I’d appreciate it if you, Carter and Teal’c would do the same.” 

Ộ

Before a full day had passed, Jack was regretting his desire for solitude. The peace and clarity he’d been hoping to find continued to elude him and his mental and emotional confusion only grew. There were reminders of both Sara and Daniel everywhere, inside the house and out. He couldn’t escape them. Bacon and eggs on the deck with Sara. A game of chase across the back lawn with Daniel. Sara naked in his room, proving to him she was real through her touches and then again as they made love. Daniel’s declaration of his love in the foyer; how they’d not made it any further than the living room floor before they’d fallen on each other. Had claimed each other. And it didn’t seem to matter that he’d never spent a _day_ in that house with Sara and that that alone should have proven to him that the memories of Daniel were the ones that were real. The ones he should grab and hold onto. He couldn’t. Not with how he could swear he could sense Sara around the corner sometimes. Or feel the soft warmth of her body; catch the occasional waft of her perfume. Not with how, whenever he would think he’d have himself convinced, Sara’s voice would echo Daniel’s betrayal, leaving a brief, but intense, ache in his heart and head. And then there was the boy on top of all that. Not his and Sara’s, he knew that. But the kid was still his; still close enough to Charlie to further cloud things.

Jack didn’t get it. He knew the bond he had with Daniel was strong. It had been since day one. Even when all they’d done had been argue and oppose. It hadn’t mattered. On some instinctive level they’d known that they’d balanced each other, too; had provided strengths for weaknesses. Light for darkness, a soul to lean on and share with during those times that their weaknesses and darkness had overlapped. And through separation, argument, barriers, possessions, alternate realities and death, they’d always managed to fight their way through and to find each other again because of that. They knew each other’s baggage and accepted each other despite it, could share in each other’s lives like nobody had been able to before. It was why they worked and why, once they’d grown tired of lying and pretending and had taken that final step, they hadn’t looked back. So why couldn’t he let the other crap go? Why couldn’t he shake this as easily as he’d shed tons of other shit and just reach out and take back what Daniel had obviously been so desperate to return to him?

“Fuck this,” Jack muttered, his heart suddenly aching for Daniel and he pushed out of the deck chair to head inside only to nearly drop to his knees at the pain that shot through his head with the movement. _What the hell?_ he thought dazedly as his eyes fell shut and he leaned against the doorframe for a moment. _Something_ wasn’t right. Something that Fraser, with all the gizmos and tech at her disposal, hadn’t been able to find. His mind raced as it started to clear and then a scowl formed as he recalled Loki’s callous indifference, and how Thor had admitted to having manipulated his DNA in the first place. Something that one of them had done was keeping that line between dream and reality just slightly blurred enough to fuck with him, and when as, the more he thought, he came to realize that the shooting pains through his head were always associated with his thoughts of Daniel, he had a pretty good bead on which one of the two it had been. “Put me through to Hammond,” he was barking on the phone less than a minute after that. He was done dealing with it. He wanted the Asgard. Now.

Ộ

“Why?”

“You know why. The reason has not changed since you initially agreed to my recommendation.”

“Yeah, but if this Ancient chick is on her way…”

Thor’s mouth thinned; his eyes slipped closed and he shook his head minutely. He wondered if, eons ago, their youth had been so difficult and, if so, if it had had anything to do with his ancestors’ decision to utilize the cloning method of propagation versus more traditional means. After the past thirty hours or so, he would not have been surprised. Opening his eyes again, he ran a finger over one of the controls on his chair. “How much longer until the stasis pod is properly calibrated?”

“Hey!”

Thor blinked at the indignant blurt and evenly met the young one’s eyes. “I am merely asking Bragi out of concern for your wellbeing,” he explained, and if he could have, he would have rolled his eyes at the disbelieving “Yeah, right” that followed. He nodded when Bragi stated it was finally nearing completion but, before he could do much more, a single chime sounded and a red square lit up on the small console on the other arm of his chair. An urgent call. From Earth. 

_’What now?’_ he silently asked as he merely stared at it for a second. He regretted neither the alliance his race had formed with the humans, nor the more personal relationships that had developed out of that. However, Thor wouldn’t deny they were both needy and trying at times. _Like all young are,_ he reminded himself with a glance at O’Neill’s clone, and then he answered it. He firmly believed that, sometimes, the young needed to be left to figure things out for themselves. Diplomatically, however, Thor knew it was far too soon after Loki’s betrayal to ignore the call. As far as he was concerned, nobody was above doing damage control when they’d done wrong. 

“Greetings, Thor.” 

Greetings, General Hammond,” Thor returned with a nod toward the hologram, amusement briefly gleaming through his eyes despite himself with how quickly the boy spun around upon hearing Hammond’s voice. “Is there an issue?” From the corner of his eye, Thor saw the clone’s expression change, worry settling over the pallid features as he took a step forward. 

“Colonel O’Neill seems to think there may be, yes.” 

“What’s going on?” 

Thor ignored the clone’s blurt -- and the curse that followed -- as did Hammond, the former’s expression becoming more somber as he listened to what the latter had to say. “He won’t go into details; says he’s saving those for you.” A wry expression briefly flitted over Hammond’s features. “Anyway, he’s being rather insistent,” Hammond continued. “And with everything that’s happened, I suppose I can’t really find my way to blame him,” Hammond concluded. “I assume you have this Loki on your ship?” 

“I do. And the beaming coordinates for O’Neill’s home,” he added in anticipation of Hammond’s next question. 

Hammond smiled a bit and then nodded. “Very good. I’ll leave it to you then. Hammond out.” 

Thor muttered under his breath as the call disconnected. The child O’Neill had been wearing his patience enough and he knew how the original got when irate -- all bluster and impatience. Not that Thor could blame him. Nonetheless, it wasn’t a meeting he was looking forward to. _Damage control,_ he reminded himself as he entered the coordinates into the transporter program and then sent for O’Neill. He just hoped that Loki would cooperate and tell them what, if anything, he’d done beyond the cloning experimentation. Not that there weren’t other ways to get it out of him, but still...

“--Sir. Thank… you…” Jack’s voice trailed off as he felt the now-familiar tingling; blinking a bit, he turned and then spied Thor. “That was fast!” 

“I understand it was rather--" 

“Hey! I thought you woulda been all cozy in your little pod by now!”

“Yeah, well; apparently they had to tweak it a bit, make it human-compatible and all.” 

Thor blinked and then blinked again when the exchange continued as if they were back on Earth, everything was fine and he wasn’t there at all, and then, “O’Neill.” 

“Yeah?” 

A sharp look from Thor silenced the clone when the two voices overlapped each other and then he looked to the original. “General Hammond told me your need was urgent.” 

“Yeah. Yeah!” Suddenly, O’Neill was all business, the man taking on the indignant look and tone Thor had been anticipating. “Either you screwed something up when you went missing with my DNA in the first place--" 

“I assure you, O’Neill, whatever you are experiencing has nothing to do with the original DNA manipulation,” Thor interrupted evenly. “We monitored you closely after we completed the task and you continued to function as normal.” 

Jack stared hard at Thor for a moment, but then relaxed a bit and nodded. “Okay. I can believe you on that. Even if the whole _monitoring me closely_ thing does kinda give me the creeps.” His brow smoothed out of the suspicious look he’d feigned for Thor’s benefit and then it furrowed slightly. “Hey, just when did you do that whole thing, anyway?” he briefly digressed. 

“We wanted to place the marker as soon as we realized we had lost track of Loki,” Thor began. “But then you had your unfortunate incident with the Tok’ra, Kanan.” 

“Ah, yes. That.” Jack shook off the shudder of disgust that always ran through his spine at the recollection. “So after that, eh?” 

“Yes. While you were recovering from the injuries you had sustained.” 

“Ah.” Jack’s brow furrowed again. “So; advanced enough to do all that, but you still managed to lose a scientist you knew was whacked out and bent on these crazy experiments. Huh.” 

“The Asgard are not perfect, O’Neill,” Thor stated evenly over the clone’s triumphant “Heh!” O’Neill’s sarcasm hadn’t been unanticipated either. “And Loki does possess the knowledge of the Asgard race.” 

“Except you managed to keep the little DNA trick away from him…” Jack hid this dig in a conversational tone, and then he waved it away almost impatiently. “Fine. You messed up. It happens.” His eyes and tenor hardened then. “But you need to fix whatever that bastard did to me. In addition to keeping your promise about the kid,” he tacked on quickly, lest Thor think there was any wiggle room to be had. 

“Of--"

“What’d he do?” the clone demanded over Thor’s response.

Jack looked at the boy. “Oh, nothing much,” he began in a tone so casual that the younger version knew _exactly_ how pissed off the older was. “Just tossed me into a life with Sara, gave me everything I could ever want and then yanked me out once he was done with his little experiment, leaving me to deal with the fun little after effects!” 

Jack’s clone stared at him in a mixture of empathetic horror and disbelief, and then something changed in his eyes and he swallowed harshly. “Charlie, too?” 

“No,” Jack said quietly after a moment. “No Charlie. He probably figured that would be _too_ much for me to buy through whatever messed up probing he did on me before he built that world. But yeah. It was pretty damned beautiful. And then I came back here to my _real life_ ,” he said with angry air-quotes, “Caught between the memories of that life with Sara that _feel_ real, and this life with the SGC and Daniel that supposedly _is_ , and Daniel’s right here and remembering and wanting our life back, but I can’t give him what he wants ‘cause of what that bastard did!” His voice had neared a shout by then and he had to take a breath, close his eyes as he tried to refocus.

“Wait, what? Daniel’s remembered?” Jack’s eyes opened again, jaw clenching at the tension in the kid’s voice. He gave a single, curt nod, hoping the boy would drop it, but knowing he wouldn’t. And, sure enough, the clone’s eyes widened and then narrowed in anger. “He’s remembered and you’ve shut him down? God!” The boy shoved his hands through his hair, gave Jack an incredulous look. “That’s all I’ve... _you’ve_ wanted from the time you found him, you moron! Even when you were me… here… like this!” the kid gestured wildly toward himself. “Even when we thought I was it, before we knew there were two of us, we wanted that almost worse than we wanted to figure out what the hell was going on! Why... _how_ could you--"

“I don’t know!” Jack shouted again and then he took another breath and tried once more to clear the haze in his head. “I don’t know,” he said again, more calmly this time. “All I do know is that what should be a clear-cut line isn’t. That I swear I can still sense her and… stuff.” He left it at that, not wanting to go into the more intimate levels that were working against him. “And that, whenever I do get things lined up right in my mind and decide it’s time to talk to Daniel, something knifes through my head and it gets all foggy again.” 

“I see.” Thor’s voice, quiet, calm and deadly, sliced though the second of quiet and prevented anything further from Jack _or_ the boy. They both watched as he stalked over to one of his consoles. “Send me Loki, now.”

“Whoaboy.” 

Jack glanced down as he felt the kid move to his side; heard the murmur. “Yeah. But the bastard deserves it,” he tacked on coldly. And, knowing full well the extent of those feelings for Sara and Daniel both, the clone merely nodded in silent agreement. He couldn’t even imagine what it must be like, having two such high-voltage wires crossed like that. There was a glow of light and then Loki appeared. Jack’s brow arched slightly; it looked to him as if Loki was still strapped to the same table he’d been the day before, and it brought him no small amount of pleasure to see that Thor wasn’t going easy on him. He didn’t deserve any niceties. And not simply due to the turmoil he’d tossed Jack into. The Asgard were good people and Jack knew full well how one bad apple could spoil it for the rest. The brow climbed higher when, upon spying him and the boy, Loki made a disdainful sound and rolled his head in the other direction. “Listen, you jackass,” he snarked, instantly heated up. “Don’t--"

“I will handle this, O’Neill.” 

Jack’s eyes briefly widened when Thor sharply cut him off. “Whoaboy,” he muttered to the kid in turn as he deflated. 

“Yeah, shh!” Jack rolled his eyes, but went silent, only because Thor was speaking already and to say anything more would have been rude, he told himself. 

“--having issues that, according to the data we procured from your ship, you never recorded your previous experiments having experienced. I want to know what you did to him. Now.” 

Loki was stubbornly silent. Thor approached the table, pushed _something_ on the control panel, and a pained look flitted over Loki’s face. “I merely tried to reset his mind to where it should have been,” he stated stiffly. 

“What do you-- Sorry,” Jack and the boy both muttered when Thor turned to look at them. 

“Explain.” 

“His choice of lifestyles is an affront to the biological process. I am disgusted by the frivolity and waste of such a relationship- as you should be given how our race is dying because of our failure to propagate. So I attempted to correct whatever imbalance had prompted him to stray from the natural reproductive course of his species.” 

“And you created a pain impulse as a corrective measure whenever he seemed to be breaking out of the reprogramming.” 

“Yes.” 

“Wait; what?” Caught between bewildered and pissed, Jack looked over at Thor, hoping, for once, that he was completely off-base with his suspicions. 

Thor sighed, took a half step around so that he was looking at him, and Jack could tell just by the way his eyes looked that he’d not been. “Loki believes that there is something wrong with you because of your relation--.

“Yeah, I get it!” Jack snapped, and he couldn’t recall when the last time was he’d been so angry. It all made sense now, and not only the fog he’d been in since he’d been returned. Sara’s atypical behavior, the way certain things had changed throughout the dream, the dark coldness he’d experience at the onset of those headaches… “So he not only took it on himself to kidnap me to try and solve your… issues, he decided to punish me for loving Daniel on top of that!” 

“Yes. He apparently feels--,

“I don’t give a _damn_ what he apparently feels! “ 

“Nor do I.” Thor’s voice was at once calming enough and enraged enough to quiet him, though he still felt as if he was listening through the rush of blood his fury had caused when he heard Thor demand, “Fix this. Now.” 

“I cannot.” 

“Loki…”

“It should have worn off as soon as O’Neill’s brain reconnected with his reality,” Loki revealed petulantly upon hearing the dark threat in Thor’s voice. “If it has not, then that is his fault; obviously he is not as convinced of the life he desires as he claims to be, or he knows on some level that his dalliance with the other male is wrong,” he added almost snidely. 

“You sonovabitch!” Jack strode across the floor and toward the table. “How dare you-- Get the hell out of my way!” he abruptly cut himself off when another Asgard appeared in his path, Jack just barely managing to put the brakes on in time to avoid running into him. 

“O’Neill, please!” Thor held his gaze for a long moment and then turned his attention to the newcomer. “What is it, Bragi?” 

“The child’s pod is ready, Supreme Commander.” 

“I see. Thank you.” Thor waited for the other to disappear and then turned a glare to the table again. Loki sniffed. 

“That said, it would seem that the programming will wear off eventually if he keeps fighting it,” he concluded reluctantly. 

“Fine.” Thor pushed another button on the control panel and Loki vanished. He looked at the clone and something in his eyes made Jack look at him as well. “Just in time, too, it seems,” Thor murmured and, for as much as Jack knew the boy was dreading it, he had to agree. 

Putting his own issues on the back burner for the moment, he gave the kid a gentle nudge. “C’mon. I’ll tuck you in and everything.” He smirked slightly to hide his concern; the boy looked like he’d been through a rough haul of chemo and dialysis at the same time and it wasn’t good. The kid knew it, too, what with the way he didn’t snap back or argue, and he even leaned into him a bit when Jack carefully placed an arm around his shoulder. 

“Yeah. I guess it’s that time.” 

They followed Thor through a series of halls and then to what appeared to be a private chamber. “My quarters,” Thor said as if having read their minds. “His pod will be kept here until Melia arrives.” 

“Thanks,” Jack quietly gave and then he helped the kid up into the pod, and then to lie down. “Sleep now.” He smiled, lightly brushed through the boy’s bangs. “Dream of everything we’ve bitched about having missed out on or messed up, and how you’re gonna live it right this time. You’ll be back before you know it.” He briefly cupped the boy’s cheek, watched him nod and close his eyes, and then Jack stepped away. “Thor.” 

“He will be alright, O’Neill,” Thor promised as the lid slid closed, having heard the question in that single word. He then turned to face him again. “I stake our friendship on it.” 

Jack smiled a bit at that and then nodded. He glanced at the pod again for a moment and then resolutely turned away. There was nothing more he could do about that other than trust. That just left the other bit of business to wrap up. “Hey, do you really think this… mind thing Loki did to me is gonna go away on its own?” 

Thor nodded. “I do. Given the position Loki is in, it would have done him much more harm than good to have lied.”

“Okay. That’s good.” Jack turned to face him then. “Is there anything you can do to speed that up a bit? Who knows how long ‘eventually’s’ gonna take, and I’ve already lost more time than I wanted.”

Thor gave a single shake of his head. “I am sorry, O’Neill. Like Daniel Jackson with his memories, you need to work through and find your way on your own or I am afraid you will never truly be rid of the questions that now cloud your mind. There will always be a doubt as to whether you are truly where you are meant to be or if you were led there.” He studied the man for a moment. “Tell me, O’Neill, are you familiar with the soul mate theory?” 

Jack arched a brow; gave Thor a curious look. “If you mean the whole, someone for everyone, missing-half kinda thing, then yeah.” He gave an awkward shrug, almost as if he was embarrassed for having known. “Not really something that guys talk about -- my generation, anyway -- but I think ‘most everyone on earth’s heard the story.” 

“It is not just a story.” Thor finished manipulating the pod out of the center of the room and into an alcove, and then turned; he took a few steps and then stopped in front of Jack. “For millennia, there have been those amongst the Ancients who believe that ascension- the point where a soul reaches its highest evolution through true enlightenment and the shedding of its physical form- could only occur with the guidance of a soul mate.” 

"So, kind of like a buddy system," Jack speculated, which earned him a blank stare from Thor.

"A buddy system?"

"Yeah. A pal, a partner, someone who always has your six."

Thor gave a single shake of his head. "No. That analogy would refer to a bond of friendship and not a soul mate. In this you are incorrect."

"Yeah," replied Jack dryly. "I didn’t think I’d get it that easy."

"Many have tried to replicate ascension through the evolvement of a more advanced form of human,” Thor continued. “But it is thought the complete evolution and awakening of the soul prior to transcendence to a higher level of consciousness is the most crucial step in the process."

"And this is where the whole soul mate theory comes in?"

"Correct, O'Neill. The Ancients believed it was the act of having a soul mate that allowed ascension to occur in its purest, and most complete, form. Though there are instances in which ascension has been achieved through other means."

Jack thought about things for a moment. His briefly furrowed, but then it smoothed and he met Thor’s gaze again. "So you're saying Daniel is what? My soul mate?"

"I believe his rise to ascension had as much to do with the deep bond you and Daniel Jackson continue to share to this day as with the outside influence of the Ancient Oma DeSala."

"Right,” Jack snorted, thrusting his hands into his pockets and shaking his head lightly. "Well, if I helped his rise to ascension then how do you explain his fall from grace?"

"The bond between soul mates is unbreakable. Ancients paired in this manner would both eventually achieve ascension."

Jack nodded slowly, the pieces coming together in his mind. "But I didn't. Ascend... that is. Not even when he offered to help."

"No."

"So... his coming back would be because?" 

"Because he is your soul mate. It is likely he could no more survive there without you than you could here without him."

“Huh.” Jack was silent for a moment, unable to keep the smile from forming. He’d been fairly certain where Thor had been headed with his tale toward the end, but to hear it put so frankly warmed him and soothed much of his irritation and hurt away. _Soul mates,_ he silently echoed, and then he tipped his head slightly. “So, while interesting...” he interjected quickly. “What does any of that have to do with me?” 

A smile showed in Thor’s eyes. “Melia, the one who assisted me on your DNA project, is of the Ancients--"

“She’s the one coming to help the kid, right?”

Thor somehow managed to refrain from muttering under his breath over the interruptions and impatience, and nodded. “Yes. I knew the marker needed to be something unique to you and yet something that could not be duplicated, but I was uncertain how to manage it without irreparably changing or damaging you. I called on her for assistance, and our conversation turned to Daniel Jackson when she found out it was you I was trying to protect. I was not aware until that time that you and he had bonded in that fashion but, once I knew, I asked her to procure a sample of his DNA.” The smile showed in Thor’s eyes again as he looked at O’Neill. And waited. 

“Because of the whole soul mates thing,” Jack finally said slowly once he’d processed this new information. 

“Yes. With the way she said Daniel Jackson was longing for you and unable to sever that bond, I thought that there was a fair chance it could be a match. And it was. When we manipulated your DNA, O’Neill, we didn’t just mark it. We added that part that had been missing for so many eons. We completed it.” 

Jack was quiet for another long moment and then an almost soft smile settled onto his lips. “He kept going on about me, eh? Is that why he got kicked out of the Ascended club?” 

“I do not know. At the time of the telling Daniel Jackson was fairly new to ascension and Melia found it more amusing than anything. She did not share anything with me beyond that.” Thor moved to the console and took one of the crystals, and Jack knew he was being sent back home.

“Hey, Thor?,” Thor paused and Jack met his gaze as it lifted. “Not that I’m not grateful or anything, but I thought you said you couldn’t help.” 

“I did not do anything in regard to your memories or Loki’s programming, O’Neill. I merely informed you of how your DNA was manipulated -- a question I am certain you would have thought to have asked in time.” 

Jack blinked and then smiled. Widely. “Right. Thanks,” he added as he was engulfed by the flash of light. 

Ộ

 _ **He cut through the channels of her blood and he made the North wind bear it away into secret places.** Slicing Tiamat in half, he made from her ribs the vault of heaven and earth. Her weeping eyes became the source of the Tigris and the Euphrates_

Daniel put the book down and reached for a worn notebook on his coffee table. “Right,” he muttered. “And the eye of Balor the giant would wreak destruction when it would open,” he summarized as he flipped to his notes on that particular being. “The personification of drought, and then with Tiamat’s eye the source of torrents of water…” He studied the notes for a moment, brow furrowed and then, eyes slipping closed, he snapped the notebook shut and lightly tossed it back to the stack. It didn’t really matter anymore anyway. The eyes had been destroyed with Anubis’ ship. Besides, the distraction he’d been so desperately hoping for just wasn’t happening. He couldn’t get his head into it. Not this time. Because, every time he’d try and immerse himself in something, all he heard was Jack’s voice; how he’d called him out many times in the past for burying himself in his work to avoid a real life conflict or issue. A small smile rose on Daniel’s lips despite the sorrow in his eyes. To which he’d almost always countered it was more productive than fishing, even as he’d put his books or laptop down so that he and Jack could talk. Not that it had been that way at first. But he’d eventually learned that it was less painful just to cede and get it out because, once Jack had reached the point of bringing it to his attention, he hadn’t been about to let go of it until Daniel _did_ speak. 

It was funny, in a way. For as much as he loved to read, teach and talk, Daniel found it difficult to discuss his personal issues or concerns. Jack was just the opposite. He was definitely the man of fewer words on the public front but, in private, he came clean fairly easily. He’d told Daniel once that it was because he’d never had someone he could trust like that before and that he’d spent too many years keeping too much bottled up inside him. Not that he hadn’t loved or trusted Sara. But there were things about Jack that Sara just _couldn’t_ know. He hadn’t had to worry about that restriction with Daniel. Daniel was living it right there beside him, and he held the highest civilian clearance available for those parts of Jack’s life that Daniel hadn’t been there for. There was no need to hold anything back. 

The small smile lingered as Daniel shifted a stack of books to the floor so that he could stretch out on the couch. His first response when Jack had told him that had been to feel guilty because he didn’t have such an easy time with the sharing. He’d not had any huge secrets like Jack; he’d just never trusted anyone enough to confide his most personal and intimate thoughts in. He’d lost his parents so young and had always been the outsider after that. And Nick hadn’t wanted to deal with a young boy’s angst any more than he’d wanted to tote him around the world with him. Perhaps, if he’d had more time with Sha’re, she would have coaxed him out like Jack had. For Daniel truly had loved her, just as he knew Jack had loved Sara. 

Daniel’s eyes slipped closed and, after taking off his glasses, he rubbed at the bridge of his nose with a sigh. Jack had referred to Sara twice in that brief confrontation. And, if his suspicions as to what Loki had done were right, he couldn’t blame Jack for being so angry and confused. His read through the mission reports had brought back his memories of the time Sha’re had communicated with him through the ribbon device with clarity. How he’d so desperately wanted the time they’d shared together through it to be real. Of course, he and Jack hadn’t been together then, either. And he supposed that what was troubling him the most. It didn’t matter what they’d gone through or how they’d been separated, they’d always found their way through it and back to each other, even before they’d become lovers. And Daniel knew that Jack loved him. He wouldn’t have risked taking their relationship to that stage if he didn’t. But he couldn’t understand why Jack was having such difficulty shaking this off and moving on this time.

Daniel felt a dull weight in his chest and gut; squeezing his eyes closed tighter, he took a long, deep breath and then just as slowly released it. “You’re not being fair,” he murmured softly to himself. “He’s just barely two days out of it. He’s hardly had time to process what was done to him let alone work through the after effects.” _’Have faith and give him time,’_ he added silently, and those six words became a mental mantra, Daniel repeating them over and again until he dozed off. 

“Daniel. Daniel!” Fingers lightly brushed through his bangs with the second call and Daniel mumbled and turned his head away from it. It was bad enough that his dreams were taunting him with the sound of Jack’s low, warm voice. The touch was like pouring salt into that gaping wound. He heard another sound, this one suspiciously like a snicker; an eye slitted open as, this time, he heard, “C’mon, Danny. Wake up.” There was _something_ there, a large enough blur for Daniel to blink his eyes open; he stared for a moment, and then blinked again. 

“Jack?” It wasn’t a dream this time. Rubbing at his eyes, Daniel scrambled to sit up and he blindly reached for his glasses, only to end up knocking them off of the table. Jack chuckled this time, reached down and picked them up. “Thanks.” He put them on, ran a hand over his head, dropped it to his side. “Jack, what are you doing here?” he asked -- curious, not accusatory -- as he scooted down a bit and then nodded toward the space he’d cleared in a silent invitation to sit. 

“You weren’t at base. And, after giving me hell for coming into Cheyenne when I’m supposed to be off, Hammond told me he’d ordered you and Carter off base through the weekend too,” he continued as he sat. He looked at his hand for a moment, then opened it; held it flat to show the key and then looked at Daniel. “I knocked, but you didn’t answer. So--" He shrugged. 

A softness flickered through Daniel’s eyes. There were a handful of nightmares Jack seemed to cycle through and Daniel knew that not making it into his apartment in time to keep him from stepping off his balcony three years ago was one of them. “It’s alright,” he assured with a slight upturn of lips, fingers lightly curling inward to keep himself from adding a tactile affirmation. It still didn’t explain why Jack was there, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask. Not with how his hope was clawing so wildly just beneath the surface of his skin. As it was, he was fighting the urge to get up and put some space between them. Jack had come of his own volition and with that and his touch, how close he was now, it was almost too much. 

“I went and talked to Thor, Daniel.” 

“Oh.” Of the countless possibilities that were running through his mind as to what Jack might have to say, that hadn’t been one of them. His stomach dropped; he swallowed, discreetly but hard. Made himself nod a bit. “How’s the boy?”

Jack’s features softened minutely. “He’s fine. In stasis now, and waiting. But he’s not why I went.” Daniel looked at him then. “I went because I was messed up, Daniel. I knew something wasn’t right. Either Loki screwed something up with the clone thing or he did something else on top of it. And damned if I wasn’t right.” 

Daniel’s eyes went wide; Jack was standing now and he tipped his head up slightly to look at him. “Jack, what did he do?” 

Jack stopped in front of a shelf; picked up one of Daniel’s myriad knickknacks. “He didn’t just put me to sleep those seven days, Daniel. He put me in a dream. He gave me Sara. I’d retired and we were living together. Had been together for months.” He put the doodad down and turned to look at him. “I’d been with you, but she told me you left me. Took off with some woman without even saying a word. That part? It was hell. I wanted to die each time I thought about it. But, eventually, I stopped thinking and dreaming about it, and I was happy. I had everything I thought I’d wanted at that time.” Jack snorted softly. “Hell, the bastard even gave me a ‘son’ at the end of it all.” 

Daniel watched Jack as he spoke and thought he might go dizzy for the ache in his heart and gut when his suspicions were proven right. It was no wonder Jack had been so angry and confused when he’d woken up. Daniel didn’t fault him at all for that. But, it didn’t make it any easier for him to hear, and by the time Jack paused, his hands had tightened into fists as he fought for some control. “I see,” he managed in a fairly even voice. “I understand.” 

“Daniel. Daniel, look at me.” 

Reluctantly, Daniel lifted his gaze and was met with a look so tender his eyes stung from it. “You weren’t listening.” Jack’s lips curved up slightly. “I said everything I _thought_ I’d wanted. _At that time_.” 

Daniel blinked, stared, felt that hope start to claw at the surface again, and this time his heart seemed to want to beat its way out of his body with it. “Oh,” he said stupidly and then, after a beat, “But now?” He watched as Jack came back over to him, sat down beside him again. Felt his breaths speed up when Jack’s hand lightly cupped his cheek. Thought he might die from the overload when the touch was followed by a gentle tease of lips over his own.

“It’s you, Daniel,” Jack murmured as he eased back. His hand fell to cover the one resting on his thigh, Jack’s fingers caressing the back of it, coaxing fingers to relax out of the fist. “No question. Not anymore. It’s always been you.” Since before Sara, even. Jack knew that now. And he knew that, one day, when this was well behind them and they were good and solid again -- when Daniel would have no room to question if that had been why Jack had come back -- he would tell the love of his life what he had learned about soulmates. That Daniel was his. But, for now, he contented himself with, “You’re a part of me.” 

Jack kissed him again, lingering this time; Daniel’s skin prickled as it had with their first. It had been so long and they’d been through so much; this separation had been an eternity, and Daniel had missed his friend Jack as much as his lover. But there was one last thing he had to know before he could put this to rest and, reluctantly, he pulled away. “I believe you,” he said lowly. “I do. But then why.... What made you doubt that, even after you woke up and realized the other had just been a dream?“

“Punishment.” Daniel’s brows arched into his hairline and then dove into a furrow when Jack gave a slight scowl. “An attempt to ‘fix’ me. Loki said my life was a waste as it was and an insult to the Asgard and their struggle, so he tried to ‘reprogram’ me, to fix whatever had gone wrong to make me uh… stray from the natural human reproductive path, or some bullshit like that,” he explained after having paused a moment to try and recollect exactly what had been said. “And he added a punitive pain response for whenever I’d start to break through it.” 

“God, Jack!” Daniel gaped at him, truly horrified, though it eased when Jack assured him that he was alright. Daniel’s expression then shifted into one of a fury that had rivaled his own. “That ignorant.... I can’t believe--" he sputtered, as was his wont when his anger or indignation would take hold. “I hope to fuck that Thor--"

“Shh! Danny, shh…” Jack silenced him with a finger to his lips, caressed the full flesh with it, and then let the touch drop again. “I’m good and it’s over. I don’t want to waste any more time or energy on it. Right now, I just want to forget about it and love you.” He wouldn't push. Daniel was more of a thinker than he was and this had fucked with him, too. If he needed more time then Jack would give it. He watched Daniel’s eyes -- God, how he could drown in them -- and saw the myriad emotions that Daniel never could keep hidden. He wondered what the thoughts were behind them… and then lost sight of it all when Daniel tipped his head just enough to take Jack’s mouth with his own. 

“Please,” he broke away just long enough to murmur against it, and then Daniel kissed him again, those long fingers threading through the hair at the back of his head and finally, _finally_ that mind-bending, heart-wrending tug-o’-war was over ,and Jack felt as if he’d truly come home. Emotions hovering just beneath his skin in a way that only Daniel had ever been able to manage, he let Daniel take the kiss as deep, hard and long as he wanted. "Bedroom," Daniel finally conveyed on a breath against his mouth. Hard, and aching from the need he felt on so many levels, Jack nodded wordlessly and then stood to take Daniel's hand. 

Daniel took it without hesitation but then, when he got to his feet, he dropped it. Stepping behind Jack, Daniel wrapped arms around his waist; a hand slipped beneath Jack’s shirt to caress his stomach, and Daniel nuzzled into the curve of his neck as the two of them walked. Jack’s explanation had satisfied that last bit of doubt but also, Daniel had been watching Jack’s eyes as Jack had studied his. He’d seen the worry there. The guilt Jack felt. The need. So much time had passed already and there had been too much space between them for too long. And Daniel would be damned if he would give Loki what he’d been after by letting what had happened damage what he and Jack had. He needed to let it go and move on so that Jack could. “I love you,” he murmured against Jack’s ear, needing to say it; needing Jack to hear it. He kissed the end of his jaw. “I love you, Jack. All the time I was ascended, even during the time I didn’t remember us, I did. I never stopped. And everything that’s happened since just makes me love you more.” 

“Daniel.” Jack stopped, chest heaving slightly, eyes dark and heavy; Daniel’s proximity, his touches, the sensation of having his breath and that mouth against his flesh after so long had been driving him crazy since they’d left the couch. The words that Daniel had just spoken, the passion behind them; it was more than what Jack had hoped for when he’d come in and yet not even close to enough, and it was all he could do to take those last couple of steps into Daniel’s bedroom versus turning and ravaging him right there in the hall. He felt Daniel’s lips curve up against his neck and Jack gave a low, breathless chuckle. The bastard knew it too and, once Jack had managed them into the room, he grabbed Daniel’s arm, spun him around from behind himself and then put him to the wall. “God, I’ve missed you,” he declared, the softness of his voice belying the manhandling and the wanton hunger in his eyes and then he put his own mouth to better uses. 

Daniel’s iteration died on his lips when Jack claimed them. Jack’s tongue then pushed into his mouth with a greed that pulsed through him and left him slightly weak in the knees. Groaning, Daniel buried his hands in Jack’s hair, rolled his hips against Jack’s and reciprocated, licking and sucking the muscle and occasionally teasing into Jack’s mouth with his own as he lightly rocked against Jack’s groin. Jack’s breath caught and then, hands slipping between Daniel’s back and the wall, he pulled Daniel hard against him. 

The increase in friction broke Daniel from the kiss with a gasp and Jack lowly growled; the sound was erotic music to his ears but God, the way Daniel looked right then…. He’d forgotten how utterly debauched Daniel could look from his kisses alone; pupils blown, faint flush of arousal on his cheeks, lips parted and swollen and glistening. His dick lurched and, panting softly himself, he brought a finger up to trace over the full, wet flesh, to tease it over his tongue. “Want your mouth on me,” he managed. “Please.” And his eyes feathered shut as his desire spiked stronger when he realized that Daniel’s hands had already started working on his fly before he’d uttered that last word. 

Fucking Jack, being fucked by Jack, grinding and groping until they made each other come, Daniel had no clue what he wanted most because, right then, he wanted it all, and it had been so long. Jack knew what _he_ wanted though and Daniel couldn’t argue. Hell, he could barely breathe at the thought of tasting Jack so intimately again, feeling the slide of Jack’s cock on his lips and tongue, down his throat. He managed Jack’s fly open, caressed his dick through his boxers, gave it a loving squeeze. “Undress,” he declared. His eyes gleamed wantonly as he took a few steps back so that he could do the same. “Get on the bed. I want all of you.” 

“Fuck, Daniel.” Jack swallowed hard, somehow managed to find enough cognitive ability to do as Daniel had told, despite how his arousal shot into the red as he watched Daniel bare himself in turn. Passionate and giving, Daniel made love with his entire being when they’d lie together; simple kisses and caresses, a slow and tender union or rough, raw fucking, it didn’t matter. Jack knew he was getting Daniel’s all. But when Daniel got like this, desire and want oozing from every pore of him, control gone and driven solely by need -- Jack swallowed the lake of spit beneath his tongue, ran his fingers down Daniel’s sternum and along his cock once, and then turned and got onto the bed. All he could do was to let go in turn and open himself up to the ecstasy that awaited him. 

Daniel’s lashes fell heavy over his eyes when he felt Jack’s fingers against him. Eyes locked on Jack’s ass once he turned, he watched Jack make his way to his bed and his mind briefly wandered from sucking him to rimming him instead. Making those taut cheeks red with his love bites before splitting them apart to expose Jack’s hole so he could lick and thrust and blow until Jack writhed and begged for him…

“Daniel.” 

Daniel blinked, slowly licked his lower lip before closing his mouth; a shiver ran through him when, as he stepped, he felt a bead of moisture slip down his shaft. 

“God, look at you,” Jack breathed as Daniel climbed onto the bed; blue-black lifted to meet equally as blown brown as Daniel nudged Jack’s left leg a bit so he could better settle between them. “You musta been thinking ‘bout something _real_ good.” 

Daniel smiled and it widened as Jack’s head fell back just from the casual brush of his fingers up and down his dick. “Rimming you,” he replied in casual tenor and his eyes blazed when Jack groaned and his dick jumped beneath his touch. “The sounds you make, your taste, how it feels to have your legs vice around my head when I make you come.”

“God, Danny... pl- ahh!” Daniel managed a grin around his mouthful of cock and then he tightened his lips and swallowed Jack down. His eyes stung as, nose pressed against Jack’s pelvis, he breathed deep and caressed the flesh of his inner thighs. He couldn’t regret that year away. Without it, he’d have had a shadow of his former life, been weak and dependent. Jack would have loved him through it; he knew that. But he wasn’t ready for that yet. So, for as glad as he was that it was over and he was back, he knew he’d do it all again and plow through the aftermath that had followed so that he could have Jack like this; be with him like this, utterly drowning in every touch and taste, every scent and sound. 

Jack’s fingers were in his hair now, caressing, pulling, almost encouraging the emotional overload. Not wanting any barriers, Daniel gave into it -- the moisture now dampening his lashes as he gave Jack’s dick a gentle tug with his mouth before slowly sliding his lips back toward his crown again, reacquainting himself with every inch, every centimeter of Jack’s length. A sharper suck to Jack’s tip, a press of tongue against his slit; Jack cried out and Daniel’s throat constricted with a sound that was part laugh, part stifled sob. He remembered. Every erogenous spot and turn-on, every little thing that would bring Jack pleasure; he was back, flesh and blood, and he remembered. And Jack, _his_ Jack, was back too. It was over and they had their life back again. Ascension had never taken him as high as he felt right then. 

Daniel sucked Jack into his throat again, cupped his balls as he swallowed around him, pressed his thumb hard against his taint and drew small circles with the pad as he rubbed his nose against the short, coarse curls at Jack’s base. Jack was calling his name like a mantra now and Daniel knew that all it would take would be the barest penetration -- a fingertip at the most -- and Jack would shout and come. Such an intimate thing to know, and his body thrummed with it. He felt so connected, so whole and alive and, when he eased off of Jack’s dick this time, a tear slid down his cheek to mingle with the sheen of saliva that now coated Jack’s shaft. A kiss to the tip and Daniel’s finger followed suit, tracing a particularly sensitive vein from Jack’s root to his crown. Jack shivered, murmured his name again; Daniel’s lips curved upward; he licked a slow circle around his head then backed away. Connected was no longer enough. After so long apart and all the heartache that had followed, Daniel craved to be complete; hands landing on the mattress on either side of Jack’s waist, he pushed himself up. “Fuck me, Jack,” he murmured as he hovered over him and then Daniel kissed him slow and deep. “Make us whole again.” 

Jack was completely at Daniel’s mercy; had been since Daniel had ordered him to the bed, and he was reveling in his surrender. Long, work-worn fingers caressing and teasing his flesh, his cock surrounded by those full, fleshy lips and greedy tongue, the hot, moist puffs of breath against his groin, the coarse-smoothness of Daniel’s hair in his hands. This, _this_ was real and it seemed as if Daniel was determined to sear that into him, and everything else from the past nine days away. And Jack... Jack was more than willing to lie there and burn. To let Daniel’s fire consume and reclaim him body, mind and soul. Jack couldn’t stop calling his name, he was that desperate for him; he couldn’t remember ever suffering such a need for anything before, but it was a sweet ache because he knew Daniel wouldn’t leave him wanting. 

Jack felt Daniel’s tongue swipe over his crown again and then nothing; fingers twitched almost impatiently in Daniel’s hair but then dropped to the mattress when he felt Daniel shift up and away. _Fuck me, Jack_. Hazed brown blinked open at the murmur, just to fall shut again when Daniel claimed his mouth, tongue mimicking what Daniel had just asked him for. _Make us whole again_ Jack’s heart ached with the words even as it sent fresh arousal coursing through his veins. His eyes opened again and then softened; he brought his fingers up to brush the lingering tell of moisture from Daniel’s right cheek. “We’re together again, Daniel,” he murmured gently. “We already are.” Daniel _smiled_ and Jack’s whole being was filled with an entirely different sort of warmth as he returned it. “But yeah; I can do that.” 

Taking Daniel’s mouth again, Jack slid his hands down Daniel’s back to his ass, each finding purchase on a taut cheek as Daniel settled down on top of him and parted his legs to rest on either side of his own. Jack left his hands there for a moment, caressing, squeezing; reacquainting himself with the perfection that was Daniel’s ass. Daniel shifted against him, cocks briefly rubbing together before he felt the weight of Daniel’s against his groin. Jack groaned into Daniel’s mouth at the sensation. “Jack, please,” Daniel broke their kiss to plead and, breathless, Jack nodded; his eyes rolling closed when, as he took a firm grasp on Daniel’s ass to hike him up, Daniel’s teeth took hold of the flesh at the end of his collar bone. Daniel shifted against him again, pushed to his knees, legs parting further, and Jack stroked a finger into his crevasse. 

Daniel whined from the tease of pressure and Jack’s dick leapt in response; barring his neck to give Daniel more room to play, he ran the digit back again, a gruff curse blasting from his lips on a breath when, as he pushed against Daniel’s hole, he met little resistance. “Jesus, Daniel.” 

“Jack, please!” Daniel’s tone was insistent and bordering on desperate; Jack could feel his breaths, hot and fast against his throat as he pushed his ass back to force the finger in more quickly. “Please!” he breathed yet again, head lifting this time, and one look into Daniel’s eyes told that he was near as ready to blow as Jack was. Swallowing hard, nodding once, Jack slid his finger out and pushed back in with two. Daniel swore this time, greedily rocked his hips back again, wantonly riding the digits as they fucked and stretched him. For the briefest of seconds, Jack contemplated just making Daniel come like this but then his words from before came through the fog in his mind. _Make us whole_ Daniel had asked and, as tempting as pushing Daniel to his peak just like this was, Jack wasn’t about to deny him. One last thrust and Jack pulled his fingers free; taking Daniel’s mouth again he rolled them. Daniel shifted beneath him, threw a pillow out of the way, lifted a leg to Jack’s shoulder and Jack pushed into him. 

Neither of them said a word; Jack’s capacity for speech had fled in the wake of the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him and, from the way the blue glittered beneath Daniel’s lashes, he knew Daniel was experiencing the same. Kissing him again, slow and tender, Jack arched out and then pushed back in again, rhythm languid but steady for as long as the two of them could bear it. When he felt Daniel’s hands start to move restlessly against his shoulders, Jack pushed in harder, picked up the pace, rolled his hips at the end of his thrust, and nearly came when Daniel’s nails bit into his skin as he called out for him. 

”Jack. Oh, God, Jack…” 

The heat coursing through Jack’s body flared. “That’s it, Danny. Come on,” he panted as he fucked Daniel hard and deep, shifting just enough so Daniel could reach in to stroke himself. He was so desperately close himself but he knew that, if he could hold out just a moment or two more--

“Jack!” 

And, as it had countless times before, Jack’s world stopped and he drank in the sight of Daniel at his peak. “Perfect,” he breathed as time sped up again. He pushed in hard one last time and came. 

The breath that had caught in Daniel’s throat as he’d peaked broke free in a ragged gasp when he felt Jack shudder against him, felt the increase in pressure that told of his orgasm. Head pushing back into the mattress, legs coming up tight around Jack’s waist, Daniel rode it with him, hands running over Jack’s back and sides, through his hair. The rush of blood through his ears drowned everything else out and the vision Jack made stole his sight; high from the perfection of it all, Daniel’s mind took him to a primordial sea and an image of the world rising from it. It was just a flash, and then Jack’s weight settled onto him, grounding him, but as his eyes drifted closed, Daniel felt the moisture that had risen to his lashes again. A flight of fantasy, he knew, but it had been a hell of an allegorical representation of their union. “I love you, Jack,” he whispered, turning his head to kiss Jack’s cheek as he let his legs drop to the mattress. A hand came up to rest at the small of Jack’s back, the other to stroke through his hair. “I love you.” 

Daniel’s fingers through his hair coaxed Jack down from his high, eased the rush of his blood, slowed his breaths. He sensed the one at his back then, felt and heard the words whispered against his cheek; he lifted his head, seeking out Daniel’s eyes. “I love you, too,” he murmured back and brushed a gentle kiss over his lips; after another, he shifted just enough so that he slid out of Daniel’s ass and then he rolled them again, to their sides this time, and drew Daniel snugly against him. “Hm?” he sleepily asked when Daniel mumbled something into his shoulder sometime later.

“Three days,” Daniel lifted his head enough to repeat. Jack’s brow arched slightly and Daniel smiled. “Three days of this, of each other, before we have to deal with the outside world again,” he explained, and then Jack smiled, too. 

“Yeah. That’ll be good.” Jack knew there’d be a lot of talking, too, between the more intimate interludes. They really hadn’t since Daniel had been back; he’d been too afraid that he’d let something slip before Daniel could remember on his own. And he wanted Daniel’s help with planning for the kid, too. And to talk to him about later. He knew they couldn’t come into the open yet; even without _DADT_ , there was too much of a risk that, in enemy hands, knowledge of their relationship could be used against them in ways Jack didn’t even want to think about. But it wouldn’t always be like that. Things would calm down, they would retire. Jack smiled. Maybe he’d manage to coax Daniel into liking to fish by th-- 

“What’re you thinking about?” 

Jack opened his eyes, found himself looking into sleepy, yet curious, blue. “Lots of things.” He nuzzled Daniel’s temple, stroked a hand down Daniel’s spine, smiled against his hair when Daniel laid his head down again. “Us. You.” 

“Mm.” Daniel smiled against his shoulder a bit. “Wanna know what I’ve been thinking about?” 

“Mm, sure.” 

“Trying to decide if I wanna kick your ass for thinking so loud you’re keeping me awake, or fuck you ‘til you pass out.” He paused, pretending to think for a moment. “I’m leaning toward the latter. You’re whiny when you’re beaten up and at least I _know_ I’ll eventually get some sleep with the other option.” 

Jack gaped, eyes wide, and then he laughed like he could never remember having done before. “Have at it then,” he finally said with a rakish grin that only widened when Daniel pushed him onto his back and stretched out over him. _Where we love is home,_ he remembered having heard once, but then the rest of the quote was lost as Daniel’s tongue sought out his tonsils while he rocked lazily down against him. It had something to do with feet and hearts, but it didn’t really matter anymore. To him, home was wherever Daniel was. They were halves of the same whole that had gone through eons of time and who knew how many hells to find each other again. Soulmates. 

“Hm?” 

Jack blinked his eyes open, realized from Daniel’s expression that he’d uttered the word aloud. “Soulmates,” he repeated. 

Daniel smiled. “Remind me, and I’ll tell you the legend,” he replied and then the hunger crept into his eyes again. “Later,” he added on a darker tenor as he resumed his previous attack on Jack’s clavicle and throat. 

Jack’s lips curved upward. “Yeah,” he murmured, wondering if Daniel’s version would be similar to Thor’s as he smoothed his hands slowly over the planes of Daniel’s back. The smile briefly widened as Jack let it go to succumb to the fog of pleasure that was settling over him again. “Yeah, I’d like that.”


End file.
